


my hopes were all dead

by thegeekypoet



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Friendship, Poe is kind of an ass though, Post-Canon, Post-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Rey has a lot of issues to work through, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, dealing with grief; loss and war trauma, slow in the beginning bc I missed the right paintrainstop or something, so happish ending?, very Rey centric but she gets her man back by the end of it, watch me shoehorn an Anakin cameo in there, who is still pining after Finn, with LOTS of angst before that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:27:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27025813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegeekypoet/pseuds/thegeekypoet
Summary: Maybe she had decided that waiting was no longer worth it, maybe destiny was calling, cruel thing that it is, bringing misery and calling it a part of greatness.or a soul once reunited shall never be broken in two again
Relationships: Finn/Rose Tico (background), Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 18
Kudos: 22
Collections: To Rapture the Earth and the Seas: the 2020 Reylo Fanfiction Anthology





	1. part 1: developing stage

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was originally planned to be a one shot or rather one scene and then ... it went a bit of the rails. Anyways there are some people to thank without whom this thing would have landed in the ever growing folder of WIP I will _certainly_ finish _very soon_ :  
> Thanks to Jac and Jo who may not be Star Wars fans (yet) but listend to me complain about all the angsty stuff while I was writing and made sure I finished this piece.  
> Thank you to my beta readers who made this what it is and left me kind words:  
> Evelyn, who was the first to read and give notes.  
> Vivien, who caught the typos and made sense of all those sentences that were way too long and complicated.  
> And Briar, who got all the commas were where they were supposed to be and created this wonderful moodboard:
> 
> Also a thank you to all the other moderators for organizing this anthology! If you have the time, check out some of the other pieces!

* * *

**Outer Rim  
** **Arkanis Sector, Tatoo System  
** **Tatooine**

 **4 months after the battle of Exegol** ****

There are no thunderstorms on Tatooine, only the wind carrying the sand to places father away. Another Rey would have yearned for them, but this one does not know any better, has never seen anything different, never felt anything different — no cool, humid air after the rain has battered down on plants and soil, no calm after the raging.

There are only sandstorms on Tatooine and they are as dry as they are deadly, the winds unforgiving and arid. Those she knows, those are the only ones she knows. Desert child, Scavenger,—

_— Jedi —_

_— Moisture farmer_.

She takes a deep breath. The air around her has almost a taste; stale, dusty.

She is here fixing the old moisture farm. A run down place, far away from the next town, secluded and with equipment long outdated and damaged, but not beyond repair. Nothing for her is beyond repair.

It was left to her by somebody—

_—Nobody, it is the broken home of a broken family, with sand in its cracks, you don’t belong here—_

—She has always been here.

Another deep breath.

She has always called the desert home,—

_—Jakku, Tatooine… they are just different words for the same thing—_

—it has a place deep in her soul the sand, the heat,—

_—loneliness._

She clears her mind, takes another deep breath of stale subterranean air, and tries to let go of her feelings, tries to bury them deep. Somewhere with the flashes of green that sometimes flicker through her mind, somewhere with the memories of another life.

_She has always been here._

Outside, the wind howls.

The Teedos’ call it _X_ ’ _us_ ’ _R_ ’ _iia_ , Rey calls it an inconvenience. The moving walls of sand keep her housebound, without work, without food, without water and most importantly with nothing to keep her mind from running, whispering of worlds far away, of another desert, from _before_. There was an old AT-AT stripped clean by a young girl marking walls for parents long gone. She can see it so clearly, meager belongings strewn around. But the young girl left one day.

Maybe she had decided that waiting was no longer worth it, maybe destiny was calling, cruel thing that it is, bringing misery and calling it a part of greatness.

Yes, maybe destiny had been calling and she had found a friend and got captured.

She had found her other half but he was on the wrong side of the story.

She had found a war and she fought it in the name of resisting.

She had found a lot of things, the young girl from the desert, and she lost even more, half of her soul ripped away. So much death. She must have wondered what a difference could have been made, had she been there earlier, later, never at all.

But why would Rey know? Her mind is a restless thing, whispering things drowned out by dry winds howling.

Leaning back against the wall, she curses the storm for doing what is in its nature, raging on. While her imagination, traitorous thing that it is, does the same, spinning a tale of belonging found among the stars, against all odds, just for a moment or two… When she has always been _here_.

_Alone._

She has wandered down the path of daydreaming too often in the past. Has let reality become a blur at the edges of her thoughts, while the world right in front of her crumbled into pieces small enough for the storm outside to carry away.

She no longer daydreams.

She tells herself the only thing that she knows is the truth. When she comes dangerously close, she says it like a prayer, like a lullaby before bedtime — she is of the desert; it is her home, her enemy, her long lost lover.

_She has always been here._

There is no Jakku, there is no Takodana and a dark figure carrying a weapon she only knew from stories, there is no Ahch-to where a legend turned himself hermit, there is no Ajan Kloss where she spent hours running away from fate, claiming it to be training.

_There is only the desert—_

_—but there could be so much more._

Rey throws a piece of metal against the wall in frustration. Normally she tamps down the voice that reminds her of someone—

No _,_ _no-one_ , she has never known anybody with a voice like that, deep and rich.

_She has always been here._

There were no soft eyes meeting hers over fire light, _no there were not_ , there was no future she had seen bright and full of green places.

There is no past.

There is no future.

There is only the present; waking up at dawn wondering if she will make it to dusk, while the sun keeps on burning, keeps on scorching, keeps on rendering all creatures lifeless. 

_There is only the desert…_

Somewhere down the hallway, a droid beeps.

_A BB unit with a selenium drive, thermal hyperscan vindicator and internal self correcting gyroscopic propulsion system. I remember, why won’t you?_

_There is nothing to remember_ , Rey wants to scream. The droid, for all its friendliness and happy chirps, is a blank spot in the story she has crafted. An astromech droid in the desert, with no pilot, no starfighter. It makes no sense. But he keeps rolling through the sand getting his processors clogged up, chatting away, like he has known Rey forever.

The last thing she needs right now is the droid, not when the past is threatening to crush her well constructed walls of—

 _—_ no _a daydream._

She clenches her jaw. Gaze fixed onto the heap of spare parts in front of her, collected for hard days out of something that feels like second nature to her, burying something that is worth enough to get her water for a lifetime.

She exhales slowly, pressing her head against the wall behind her, as if the pressure will help ease her turbulent thoughts.

Sometimes she thinks she can hear the weapon calling to her, under layers and layers of scrap metal. The same way the darkness begs to be let in again, the same way the light coaxes her to reestablish the connection with the fabric of the universe, with what binds one living thing to another. The crystal at its core wails like a forgotten child, the remnant of something she tried to banish from her mind. There is no need to carry the light or the dark or an order, which turned legend, then reality, then mythos again.

_It doesn’t have to stay that way._

She knows nothing of it. Has never spent hours pouring over worn out texts for something, _anything._

The droid rolls into the room all bubbly chirps and beeps. Rey barely acknowledges him. A part of her remembers that he belonged to somebody, a pilot… A _great_ pilot—

_— I wouldn’t necessary call him great, but he was part of what you considered the closest thing to a family—_

— She has no family.

_You had them and you had me._

_She has herself._

The droid twists its head with questioning beep.

_Herself and the droid._

She sighs and slowly rises to her feet. There is no hurry these days, not when the wind has a mind of its own. She looks down at this ball of metal and high spirits.

The Rey of another life—

_—you—_

—knew it all began with that droid. She ignores the images of a forest and the memory of panic flooding her veins like poison.

The droid beeps again, complaining that he has sand in his processors. _Again_. An astromech droid in the desert, she shakes her head, _whoever this pilot guy is, he's sure not on the bright side._

If she would have listened — _she does not_ — she would have heard a rather inelegant snort in the back of her mind.

Instead she searches for the tools necessary to clean the droid’s processors. “You shouldn't go into the courtyard,“ she chides him, “when the storm is still this dangerous.“

He ignores her, chirping away about a small creature he had followed outside, instead. Rey listens, what else is she supposed to do? It is not her droid after all. She just keeps him around the house.

She used to take him to town, too, but with him always came a group of children, starry-eyed and full of dreams, asking her if she was a pilot, if she had fought against the First Order, if she was a hero. Rey always shook her head and smiled, patiently.

It was no lie; she had never been a pilot.

But it was not the children with their hope who pushed her to the conclusion to leave the droid back at the house. It was the attention of the adults pulled towards her. They never talked to her directly; the half exposed blaster on her hip made sure that nobody would think her an easy target. But they always started whispering when she walked by, the odd young woman living in the old moisture farm, where no-one had been seen for what must be generations, spitting out the name _Skywalker_ like a curse.

The name she has given herself. The same way she claimed Rey.

And still she is no-one; a name does not change that. But it had felt so right, in that moment, shortly after she had arrived and the ghosts of the past had looked at her in silent agreement…

Now she doubts if she even needs a name at all; she has nobody to call her by it.

She never had.

It is etched into her bones, the same way another Rey had etched marks into walls.

The walls here are smooth, cool stone. No need for marks when time has become an irrelevant thing. When there is no more waiting.

Because they are dead, as he is dead. As the past is dead.

There is no need to remember — _no to imagine —_ what another life was or could have been. Because it never was and never will be.

There were no rain drops kissing her skin as he declared himself a monster.

No thunder roaring in her ears as she stabbed him.

No lightning flashes as he died.

He does not exist here, he never has. They don’t exist, they never have.

Still there is a deep abyss in her mind, a wound she has buried in the dirt and it hurts and aches and festers.

But Rey has had it worse, has made it through worse.

So she does what she does best. She survives.

* * *

When the winds finally subside, it is late evening. The twin suns cast the wide open landscape in crimson and gold, setting the dunes aflame with color and an odd sense of calm. The few moisture vaporators that the storm has left standing are the only slashes of darkness, casting long shadows amongst the fading sunlight.

Rey knows she will have to work through the night if she wants them to be operational in the next few days again. After sitting for hours and hours, maybe even days inside the house, she is almost glad about the extra work.

Sleep seems impossible now anyways. Or maybe she just dreads it especially after hours of uneasiness. The dreams seem even worse now than being trapped inside during a storm.

Because sometimes she sees an ocean.

An island.

Green planets and waves ever churning, pebbles on a beach and air so humid it seemed difficult to breathe at first.

And life.

So much life. Buzzing above her, beneath her, next to her.

Sometimes there is laughter and tiny hands grabbing hers, sometimes there is the quiet rustling of leaves and fingers interlacing.

She dreams of impossible places, so outlandish one could not make them up and she always wakes with the ghost of a palm grazing hers, a pair of lips meeting, a promise whispered in the voice that haunts her.

_You’re not alone._

One learns quickly not to cry in a place where water is precious, but every time Rey surges out of sleep with a gasp, she finds her pillow wet, as if a part of her, trapped under her skin, had woken up wailing and empty.

Cold.

Lonely.

And it always lingers, when she gets out of the small bundle of blankets she calls her bed, when she gets to work and her hands move almost as if they have a mind of their own. They tear apart and put pieces back together and Rey wishes she could do the same thing with herself. Just take out the part of her that she buried deep, the part that used to be connected to the whole universe, the part that remembers all of it. All the heartbreak and joy, all the fear and comfort.

It knows that there is no rain on Tatooine, but there was on Ahch-to. Droplets of water kissing her skin for the first time and the ocean in front her.

It knows that there is no thunder on Tatooine, but there was on Kef Bir, roaring like the power that was flooding her veins, as the two of them paced among the ruins of another war.

And it knows that there is no lightning on Tatooine, but there was on Exegol, flashing around her, through her, as star ships rained from the sky.

That part remembers why she decided to forget. Because it was too much pain, despair and helplessness and the memory of his body fading away.

Here, she is just the odd young woman out in the crumbling pieces of a once family home, with work that will never be done. Pain becomes numbness, despair turns into content, and helplessness makes room for days of purpose.

The part that remembers becomes smaller. The voice at the back of her head becomes quieter. The rest of her keeps repeating the same thing every morning when she wakes up, every night when she lays down to rest, every hour that is filled with work. There are only sandstorms of Tatooine. Dry and deadly. And they are all Rey knows.

_She has always been here._

Over the course of days blurring into weeks and finally what must be months, the girl who had once been the last Jedi vanishes into the dust and dirt of the desert.

Until one morning, with the world painted in pastel, the memories refuse to stay dreams.

* * *

The two figures illuminated by Tatooine’s rising twin suns seem strikingly out of place even from a distance. Rey makes it back from her morning round along the property when she registers the intruders. Her hand moves to the blaster at her hip in an instant as she walks closer to the house and in turn closer to them.

It is the way they stand, faces turned towards the sun as if they are waiting for its first rays of light.

It is the way they carry themselves and the way they are dressed. Both wrapped in what appears to be thick cloth, definitely not made for the desert, not even the cooler nights. The taller figure, a man, wraps his arms around the smaller one, a woman, pressing a kiss to her forehead. It is just a simple gesture of intimacy, but it is enough to rip open wounds Rey never wanted to acknowledge. The ones she left to fester in the desert heat.

It is after the man pulls away that he registers her, figure clad in faded colors amidst the washed out plains of beiges.

Recognition leaps into his features when their eyes meet and it comes crashing down around Rey the exact same moment. His hair is shorter again, closer to the length when they first met, although back then he was dressed in what she presumed was a stolen jacket and standard Stormtrooper undergarments.

Now Finn is wrapped in multiple layers of clothing, marking him as a Core Worlder on his travels among the stars. If sold, they would be enough to feed Rey through two months. His face lights up and he must whisper her name, because Rose turns her head towards her then. Her hair is pulled back into an updo Rey does not recognize and she smiles, her lips move, too, but Rey does not hear her either. Maybe they are just talking very quietly, maybe it is Rey’s heartbeat that seems to drown out every noise around her.

They do not belong here.

They are a part of another Rey’s life, part of a past she has convinced herself had never happened.

They do not belong here.

With their fancy clothes and kind smiles.

_They do not belong here._

_Nobody belongs here._

She scoffs at the voice in the back of her head; of course it shows up now. She had been so sure that she had just imagined it after weeks of silence and the hole at the back of her mind growing bigger by the day.

She hates how a part of her is relieved.

She hates how they just marched into her life, leaving her with the crumbling pieces of a story she so carefully constructed. She turns sharply to the right and marches quickly towards the house while she tries to keep calm. They would be gone soon.

_They will leave soon._

_There is no need to worry._

”Rey!“ It is Rose who breaks out in a run. She should not run in clothes like these, it is a waste of moisture, Rey thinks as she quickens her pace. Maybe she should tell them to go away, but her throat feels suddenly drier than the ground she is walking on. She closes the door with more force than necessary. Falling back against it, the only barrier against the outside, the past, the memories.

_They do no belong here._

_Why are they here?_

_They do not belong here._

_She needs to calm down._

Deep breath.

_She has this under control._

Deep breath.

_She does not know them._

Deep breath.

_It will be fine._

_It has to be fine._

She slowly makes her way down the stairs. The western wing of the living complex is still almost completely submerged in sand, but she has cleared most of the eastern rooms around the surface entrance. She concentrates on that. On the area she will clean out today. On the spare parts she will repair. On the things that are within her control.

_It will be fine._

When she reaches the bottom of the stairs she almost believes it; the feeling of dread has dampened and her heartbeat has slowed again. Then she registers a voice from the courtyard. She has the blaster drawn in almost a second and takes a few quick steps towards the area. It is significantly cooler down here, the sun not yet having reached into the pit; the heat has not yet seeped into the ground.

She finds a man crouched down and in a chirpy conversation with the droid, who promptly reveals her in a tirade of beeps. She clenches her teeth, reholstering the blaster and tries to keep calm when the crouching person finally becomes fully visible.

In comparison to Rose and Finn, Poe Dameron seems immensely tired. Single grey hairs dot his stubble and the bags under his eyes are very dark. He sends a smile her way, but it is weak, barely a tug at the corner of his lips. It is terrifying how it looks exactly the way Rey’s smiles feel.

”There's sand in his processors.“ It is meant to be teasing, but falls flat with the exhaustion laced through his voice.

Her mind drags up images of his smile during the war. Bright, dashing. Making half of the engineer corps swoon. She tenses. She wants him to be gone, with his charming and beaten smiles. She cannot bear it.

”You should take him with you then, sand in the desert should not be surprising.“ Avoiding eye contact, she hurries into the room with her workbench.

Deep breath.

_He will be gone soon, too._

With his tired face and slumped shoulders that make her ask herself if she looks the same. If her feet drag across the floor the same way. If there is the same air of _defeat_ around her.

Rey slams the door shut with more force than necessary. She has to get to work. As soon as her hands start moving, this feeling will be gone, lost in the rhythm of manual labour, and they will be gone not long after.

 _She can do this,_ she tells herself as she scrubs down spare parts with more ferocity than needed, as if she could scrub the memories spilling over away with the dirt.

 _She can do this_ , she reminds herself while the images continue to drag themselves to the surface as if something had just come undone inside of her.

 _She can do this_ , she just has to take a few deep breaths and center herself.

 _She can do this_ , she just has to calm down her heartbeat.

 _She can do this,_ this is not worse than the dreams, the way his eyes shone after she kissed him, the smile on his face, the reassurance of _you’re not alone_.

_It wasn’t all bad._

No, no, _NO-_

There is a sharp pain on the inside of her right hand, breaking through all the memories or fantasies that are clouding her head. Rey stares down at the red liquid gathering in her palm. Hypnotized she presses her fingertips against the cut, the burning almost like an anchor of reality, a physical equivalent of the pain that is crawling through her insides, leaving no place untouched. It takes a moment for instinct to kick in and remind her, that water is life in the desert and one cannot afford to loose much of it.

_Rey._

The voice is soft, like a palm caressing her cheek, or reaching out across light years.

_You need to get it cleaned and bandaged._

Of course she does, she knows _that,_ staring at the pool of crimson as she rises to her feet and opens the door and walks outside through the courtyard.

The blood spills over her palm, drops falling down.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

The sun illuminates the sand which greedily swallows the liquid, thirsting for more. _Will it swallow her body the same way?_ She wonders. One day. When she is old and withered from the sun. When there is no one left to mourn, will the sands bury her? Slowly. Carefully. Caressing inch by inch, like a long lost lover, until she is one with desert and the desert is one with her. Until no one can find her ever again.

_Rey._

That _damned_ voice. She wants to scream, she wants to bang her head against the wall, just to make it stop.

_Make it stop._

”Rey?“ Rose is approaching her slowly, cautiously almost. Rey looks up at her and realizes the sudden wetness on her cheeks that the sun tries to burn away, even hungrier than the sand. Dazed she reaches up to wipe them away, smearing blood over her cheeks.

It feels like warpaint in a way, when she meets Rose’s gaze.

”You’re injured.“ Her voice is calm. Matter of fact, as she slowly comes closer. She looks so absurd, so out of place.

_Why is she here? She does not belong in the desert._

_Nothing does._

”And here I thought I was nothing.“ She wants to laugh at her terribly twisted joke. Her mind conjures up the image of a burning throne room and pleading words spoken with desperation.

“What did you say?“ Rose asks as she grasps Rey’s hand, careful but with determination. Her fingers are cool against Rey’s sun-heated skin.

“It’s nothing,“ Rey murmurs. Just daydreams running away with her again, while the sun is climbing higher, how have they not passed out in their thick clothing yet?

“Well, this sure as hell is not,“ Rose says inspecting her cut. “Ouch, what were you working on?“

“Spare parts,“ Rey murmurs and she does not know why she keeps talking, but something inside of her screams in relief to be able to voice her thoughts to _someone_ , even when they are watched by two pairs of eyes and a droid not far off.

“Do you have something to clean it with?“

“Water has been scarce this month.“ Rey keeps her eyes trained on her hand, even when she feels Rose trying to meet her eyes, or maybe she does it because of that. She cannot afford the last few strands of control slipping through her finger when she is already barely holding on.

“You should go with me to the ship and we-“

“No.“ She does not shout, maybe it would have been better if she shouted, but her voice is calm, collected. Rose still flinches, maybe noticing the mistake she has made in her agenda to convince Rey to leave.

But Rey cannot leave. Because what will happen if the routine is gone?

It will be like sandstorms raging all over again.

Or worse.

Because maybe, just maybe, wherever they will take her there will be rain, and thunder, and lightning and with them the memories will come.

Rose meanwhile exhales softly and then when Rey finally is careless enough to look up from her hand, she meets Rose’s stare and it is steel and grace and persistence. Rey is unsure what is the most unnerving.

“You’re hurting.“

Rey snorts, humorless, hollow, “Tell me something I don’t know.“

“I don’t mean your hand.“ It is terrifying the way Rose looks at her, like she can see right through. See all the mornings when she woke to a tear soaked pillow, all the hours spent in endless, numbing work.

”I am fine,“ Rey replies. It is the oldest lie she knows. Whispered among starship graveyards and battlefields. And she finally believes it, truly believes it.

”We are worried about you. We thought giving you space would help.“

”I don’t need help,“ Rey replies, clenching her jaw.

Rose sighs, ”Everybody needs help sometimes. That’s what friends are for, Rey."

”I don’t need help.“

”You could use some cleaning that wound,“ Rose points out, fingers still delicately wrapped around her wrist.

Rey rips her arm away clutching her hand; her voice drips with malice. ”I am doing _just fine_ , thank you.“

Rose’s look is full of pity, Rey can no longer hold it. Anger courses through her veins, transforming everything it touches. She does not need pity. She has fought a phantom menace, she has faced Snoke, she has found the last of the Jedi and-

_So you haven’t forgotten._

She clenches her jaw so hard, it feels like snapping.

Of course.

Of _kriffing_ course, the goddamn voice is still there.

This day is getting worse by the minute.

”Rey.“ It is not Rose’s voice, now. No, this one belongs to an older friend. ”Maybe you don’t need our help, but we need yours.“

She looks up at Finn and somehow she knows deep in her bones that this is the moment that changes the course of the time to come. Because meeting him was what started this whole mess in the first place. Or maybe it was the droid before or the creature in a mask after him, but those are _daydreams_ and who is Rey to know such things?

* * *

“Byss?“ Rey raises an eyebrow while she wraps the spare fabric around her wounded hand, as Finn watches her with skepticism.

“Well, it’s not just Byss,“ Poe remarks, his voice now more animated “There are several First Order remnants clustered throughout the galaxy, following ex-generals and officers that fashion themselves as warlords.“

“But the war is over,“ Rey retorts, feeling naive and stupid for even voicing the thought, but too preoccupied with wrapping the fabric around her hand to really care.

“Not for them,“ Finn remarks grimly. Poe nods in agreement as he looks at him, eyes full of something Rey once thought she knew. Finn does not notice.

“So what do you need me for exactly?“ Rey asks, not sure where to direct her eyes, now that her hand is bandaged.

“We need you to set an example,“ Poe murmurs. Finn sends him a glare, before he speaks up. “Rey, they are still recruiting soldiers.“

”I don’t see why you need me for that, I’m just one person.“

“You’re _the last Jedi_ ,“ Finn’s voice is laced through with desperation, “and I… I can’t let them continue what they did to me.“

Rey clenches her teeth, “I am not…“

“Oh quit it,“ Poe snaps, his voice harsher than before. Rey flinches. ”You have been holed up here for what? Over three months? We have neither heard nor seen anything from you. Finn and Rose are too nice to say anything, but kriffing hell Rey, get your shit together, because all you’re being right now is a constant of worry for us.“

Something in her snaps.

“Out,“ her voice is quiet and controlled, nothing compared to the anger coiling within her. After everything they brought with them, the memories of easy smiles and mess halls and a cause to believe in, after the pain that is still trying to drag itself up, out of her subconsciousness. They have the audacity to call her a constant worry.

“Rey-“ Rose tries pleadingly.

“ _I said OUT!_ “ Rey repeats, jumping to her feet and meeting Poe’s glare with a ferociousness that she did not know she still possessed. “I never _asked_ for anyone to worry.“

Rose gestures with her head towards the door, suddenly seeming very done with the situation. “Poe.“

Poe lets out a low grunt and gets to his feet. “You can throw me out all you want, we both know it’s the truth.“

She ignores him and vanishes out of the arch into the courtyard, closely followed by Finn, who seems to be talking to him in hushed tones. Rose pushes herself up slower, more careful or maybe more calculated. “I’m sorry we marched in like this.“

Rey blinks rapidly as the words echo in her head. _All you_ ’ _re being right now is a constant of worry for us._

How can he say something like that? When her shoulders slump the same way his do?

Why does it matter so much to her?

She has always been—

The sentence is out of her mouth before she can finish the oh so familiar thought, “Is it true? Am I that much of a—“

“You’re not,“ Rose’s tone leaves no room for debate, as she walks around the table to her and grips Rey’s hand, squeezing it reassuringly. “We are your _friends —_ we want what is best for you and Poe…well, you know he’s…“

“An ass?“

Rose smirks and Rey remembers shared quarters in a world covered in jungle. “I would have said _complicated_ , but ass is also very fitting,“ 

She pauses as if she is collecting her thoughts and takes a long breath before she speaks again, “I know it doesn’t excuse his behavior but he has a lot on his mind right now. They made him the poster boy for the Senate, Leia’s heir and all that. And he thinks he has to do this in her honor, but… truth be told he’s still grieving her death.“

 _Grieving_.

Is that what Rey should be doing?

Who? There is no one here, she is alone.

She has always been alone, _always been here_ —

She nods shakily and abruptly, unsure how she should respond to something like that.

“You don’t seem much better to be honest,“ Rose says.

Rey’s first instinct is to shut down, but Rose’s eyes are so open and honest, it makes it easy to want to spill her guts. Just a little.

“Listen, they asked a lot of you, it’s okay to take time for yourself to heal, but… the thing is you never did.“

“I–“ she almost chokes on the word.

Rose squeezes her hand again. ”We all lost something, Rey, you’re not the only one in pain.“

A tear drops down her cheek. ”I know, I’m sorry.“

”Don’t be.“ Rose smiles a sad little smile. ”Just know you can talk to me– _us_ , okay?“

Rey nods, wiping the single tear away as Rose lets go of her hand and walks towards the courtyard, pausing in the archway to turn back to her. “The offer still stands.“

”Offer?“

“We really could use your help.“

Rey nods absently.

“Just think about?“ Rose sends her a cautious smile, “We’re docked near Anchorhead.“

And with that she is gone, leaving too many memories behind.

* * *

Rey _does_ think about it.

About Finn’s pleading eyes, Rose’s offer and Poe’s slumped shoulders, burdened with the glory of lives long lost.

She thinks about daydreams and nightmares and the memories she pushed down.

Somewhere between the legacy her friends try to carry and the loneliness of her soul, she finds him.

The reason she is here.

Or at least she thinks so.

She thinks about all those things and about the misery that awaits her outside of orbit. The fear of what still lingers in her unconsciousness, of waves lapping on shores, and drizzle on her skin and his name falling from her lips in a hopeful whisper, a desperate plea, a bright realization amongst the darkness of a place she does not dare to remember.

And then amidst it all, there is the anger. She does not know where it comes from, really, a half-formed thing in the back of her mind, right next to the voice that could be just imagination or something she does not want to imagine.

Because what would it mean?

Because what _could_ it mean?

She lets out a frustrated cry, hurling the spare part she cut herself on earlier against the wall. It crashes against the scrap heap and more parts clatter to the floor.

One by one.

The sound echoes, as they spill all over the ground.

She lets out a curse that would make any half decent smuggler blush as she kneels down to gather them together again. Most of the metal is cool from lying around for days, if not weeks, but among them, her finger brushes a warm fragment of something. She looks up and when she sees what she had been touching she pulls her hand away, as if burnt.

She waits for the crystal to start weeping, like it did the last time.

It doesn’t.

She prods it again with her finger.

Nothing.

Carefully she wraps her fingers around the hilt, warm to the touch and comfortably heavy in her palm.

She has no idea how long she sits there at the center of a storm of metal spilling over the floor, gripping the lightsaber like it is a lifeline, made of pieces from her childhood weapon and a crystal the color of the sun.

She just sits there, the images washing over her mind, slowly, as she stares at it.

A forest bathed in white, a weapon flying into her open palm, the fear that comes with the knowledge of what this means and his face open and in awe as he whispers “It is _you_.“

She knows that she should lay it down. Let it rest with the past she still tries to bury. Let the sand bury it. Let the sand bury her.

She _knows_.

But, oh some part of her is tired of surviving.

When she activates the upper half, the dusty old room shines as bright as daylight.

* * *

Anchorhead is not very big. Rey keeps to the outskirts and it does not take her long to make out the ship and the people moving around it. She jumps down from the speeder and clutches the meager belongings she had frantically stuffed into her bag. Her lightsaber thuds against her knee with every step. Maybe she should carry it on her back, secure it with some straps, maybe—

She shakes her head, her thoughts already running away with her.

It is Poe who registers her first; Finn’s back is to her and Rose seems to be inside. Rey is suddenly not so certain anymore. The cluster of buildings is already making her anxious.

Better she just goes back. Better she just keeps on surviving. Better–

”Rey!“

She freezes, half turns. To her surprise it is Poe’s voice, not Finn’s. Her instinct tells her to take off and run, run like death itself is behind her, run with everything she has. But instead she goes rigid. 

And then she slowly, very slowly, turns back around to face both of them, shifting uncomfortably from one foot to the other, unsure of what to say.

“I’m sorry,“ Poe says, breaking the silence, “for saying all that stuff earlier.“

Rey nods absently, “It’s fine…“

“Rey, you don’t have to–” Finn interrupts.

“It’s fine,“ she repeats, meeting Poe’s tired and bloodshot eyes.

 _What keeps you from sleep?_ she wonders. _The lives you have taken or the ones taken for you?_

She clears her throat awkwardly. “You still could use some help?“

“How is that even a question?!“ A smile spreads across Finn’s whole face. It is an astounding thing really, how one smile can transform a person to thoroughly and yet still somehow feel off. She does not have too much time to think about it, because a mere second later, she is crushed in a hug.

Poe lets out a laugh as she pats Finn on the back, the motion feeling all wrong and foreign. His laugh sounds wrong, too. Empty.

 _What has happened to you?_ Rey is again left wondering, nearly being crushed by Finn, who is clinging to her as if he still doubts she is actually here. _Are your nightmares the same as mine or are they worse?_

When Finn finally lets go of her the smile is still there. She does her best to mirror it. It feels the way Poe’s laugh sounded, but Finn does not seem to mind, as he calls over his shoulder for Rose. Her shadow appears at the top of the landing ramp a few seconds later.

”Look who made it!“ Finn points to Rey, the expression on his face changing, growing softer, more loving. It feels like a knife to the gut, filling Rey with a longing that cries out from deep within her soul.

“I’m happy you’re here,“ Rose tells her and Rey nods, because amongst the beaming and tired faces, it is the first thing that’s not burdened by whatever they all carry with them.

It is simply the absolute truth.

* * *

**Somewhere between the Outer Rim and the Colonies**

_His smile is the brightest thing she has ever laid eyes on. The lightning around them dims in comparison._

_And then she watches him fall back._

_And then she watches him die._

_What has she done?_

Rey jerks awake, as someone lays a hand on her shoulder. She looks into Finn’s concerned eyes, and there is no forced smile this time. “Hey.“

“Hey,“ Rey replies quietly.

“You’re okay?“ Finn asks.

Rey notices the wetness on her cheeks; she raises her hands and wipes her face before she nods, “Yeah, yes, I’m okay.“

Finn plops down next to her, onto the lounge where she must have fallen asleep. “If you want to talk–“

“I am fine,“ Rey insists, wiping her tear-stained hands on her pants. They are quiet for a moment. Rey fidgets with the ends of the shawl that Rose gave her not long after they had taken off. The material is thick and soft.

“I have them, too, you know, the nightmares,“ Finn says after a while, his voice oddly loud in the silence around them.

Rey pulls her legs closer to her torso. “What are they about?“ she asks, quickly adding, “If you don’t mind–“

“I don’t,“ Finn interrupts her, falling quiet again as if he is collecting his thoughts. ”Different things. Sometimes they’re memories from, you know, _before_.“

She nods and he continues, ”And then I… I always kill them, the other Stormtroopers you know, without a second thought, and they all tell me that they are afraid, that they want to leave… but I don’t even think about it. I never really thought about it. Rose tells me not to lose myself in things that cannot be changed, that it was a war and all that, but…“

“…you still feel guilty.“ Rey finishes for him. The feeling becomes more familiar with time moving relentlessly forward.

He nods. “I should have done something. Especially after we found the others on Kef Bir, but I just… I did nothing, when they only needed a chance.“

Rey looks at him for a long moment, realization dawning on her. “That’s why you want to hunt down those outposts, isn’t it?“

Finn nods. “It’s stupid, I know, it doesn’t change anything, but … it feels better than sitting by, watching Rose and Poe do their things, rebuilding the Republic.“

She nods and pretends she understands, and they fall back into silence soon after. Rey keeps fidgeting with the shawl and Finn stares at the space in front of him, lost in thought.

“Lightning,“ she says after a while.

He turns towards her.

It did not even sound like her voice.

There is so much more she dreams about. Islands and deep brown eyes staring empty at the star ships raining above. But she does not feel like telling him about that.

”I dream about lightning,“ she says, “and the way it slipped from his finger tips, shaking the whole sky, the same way that I…“ She drifts off, staring at her hands: one bandaged, one clutching the fringes of the shawl.

“Is that why you cut yourself off?“ Finn asks after a moment.

Rey furrows her eyebrow, “Wha–”

“The Force,“ Finn explains and Rey sends him a confused look.

“I—“, Finn clears his throat, awkwardly shuffling his feet over the coarse metal floor. “At the end of the war I noticed that I can… sense things.“

Rey looks at him in astonishment. “Why did you never tell me?“

“I tried in that sinking pit,“ he says sheepishly.

“Ah,“ is all that Rey can muster.

“You used to be like a … um, bright spot?“ Finn sounds unsure. “But now you’re not there at all.“

“I…“ she trails off. She what? Had not even noticed? Did not want to notice. Did it because there is hole in her soul where another person should be? A person he knew well enough, a person that sliced his back open and…

“It’s complicated,“ she says finally, cutting off her thoughts before she remembers more.

He smiles, but there still seems something off about it. “Then I guess then I’m the new Jedi in town.“

She cannot help the tug at the corner of her mouth and wonders if that is just what wars do to people. Robbing them of smiles and sleep.

“I’m glad you’re here,“ Finn tells her and his eyes are earnest even if his smile does not reach his eyes.

“I’m not sure if it's a mistake.“ Rey whispers and he nods.

“I guess we’ll find out.“

“We?“

“Yes, that’s what friends are for, aren’t they?“

“I don’t know,“ Rey tells him.

“Also I need someone to make fun of Core-worlders,“ he grins.

Warmth spreads inside of her. “They dress weirdly, that much is certain,“ she responds, as she inspects Finn’s clothes.

He makes a protesting sound, but cannot stop the smile from returning; it seems different somehow. The one Rey returns feels different, too, and for a moment it seems like they can pretend that everything is normal. That smiles are supposed to be broad and feel like sunshine filtering through leaves, and not a cover up for pain too deep to explain.

They just smile at each other, like two old friends reuniting at last.

* * *

Finn gets called to the cockpit after a while, as it is his shift for the next few hours. Poe is off somewhere sleeping. Rose has decided to join Rey in the main-hold. They sit next to each other in silence for a while, Rey pretending to sleep and Rose off in another corner reading through something on a data pad.

Finn had mentioned that she and Poe were helping rebuild the government. Rey wonders what that looks like. She can envision Poe as a politician… or at least his war-self. Confident and charming, but Rose always struck her as someone more quiet, reserved.

“What are you reading?“ she asks after a while.

Rose looks up at her. "It’s a report of a diplomatic negotiation I missed. Pretty dense.“ She sighs, massaging her temples. “The Western Regions are still very persistent in keeping their ways of… let’s call it cheap labour.“

Rey nods absently, thinking of quarter portions for parts that were supposed to be worth at least twice as much.

Rose studies her for what seems like ages. 

And Rey once again wonders what she is even doing out here drifting among the never ending darkness of space, when she could be back on Tatooine, where everything is familiar and consistent.

“But I think I need a break,“ Rose announces, seizing Rey out of her thoughts, “I still have a thing I’m trying to repair. Maybe you could help me?“

* * *

“Kriffing… hell!“ Rose curses as she again fails to get the wire where it needs to be. She wipes her hands on an old stained piece of fabric lying around and leans back against one of the kitchen counters tucked between the main-hold and the engine room.

“How old is this thing even?“ Rey lets out a frustrated huff, trying to blow a strand of hair out of her face.

“No idea,“ Rose says, scrunching up her face in annoyance. “Probably from before the Clone Wars.“

Rey nods absently as Rose dives back into the mess of cables.

It is nice busying her hands, making the doubt go away, with its constant whispering of _what are you doing? why are you here?_ and _you need to go back._

_Back where everything is in control and not here amongst hyperlines rushing towards the Core. You don’t belong there._

It softens to a whisper, one easily ignored when she concentrates on the pieces scattered in front of her — tiny and rusty, and covered in a mixture of dust and oil. They are not easy to clean and extremely complicated to fit back together. The task absorbs all of her attention. But it is still nice to know that there is someone only a few feet away from her, working under the same stark artificial light as she. A heartbeat within the same room.

They are both yanked out of their respective tasks when Poe rushes into the room.

“Rose, you’re—“ he stops mid sentence when he looks at the pieces, wires, and tools strewn around them both. “Never mind,“ he says, leaning against the doorframe, raising an eyebrow in Rose’s direction. “You’re still on about that caf-machine?“

“It’s taunting me.“ Rose lets out a huff of air as she tries to entangle some wires that have twisted together. “Kriffing ancient piece of garbage.“

Poe’s eyes wander over to Rey hunched over her small pieces. “So now you dragged Rey in to repair it?“

“ _Helping_ repair it,“ Rey corrects, putting the cleaned pieces aside and searching for a screw that is supposed to secure all of the rearranged parts.

Poe nods before turning to Rose again. “We’re approaching the Colonies and they’re being assholes with regulations again.“

Rose sighs, letting go of her entangled wires. "So you want me to abuse my diplomatic status, _again_?“

“ _Please?_ “ Poe sounds tired, or maybe that is just the tone of his voice now, Rey muses. “The ground unit on Coruscant has a schedule to keep up with and since we took a detour we’re about eighteen hours behind.“

Rose sends him a look. “Your time management sucks, Dameron. I hope you know that.“

“Crystal clear, now please? They are screaming at me in a language I don’t understand.“

Rose looks back at Rey who gestures to the door with her head. “It’s fine, I’ll clean up.“ She could use some time alone,

“Thank you.“ Rose sends her a small smile and vanishes into the direction of the cockpit.

 _How is she the only one that has somehow preserved an honest smile?_ Rey wonders as she kneels down to group together the pieces that still have to be looked at, when Poe awkwardly clears his throat.

“I meant it, you know,“ he says finally.

“What?“ Rey asks, not looking up from where she is packing up the spare parts that are already restored and ready to be put back together.

“That I am sorry for the way I reacted back on Tatooine. It’s just they both worry a lot about you and…“

Rey nods absently. She and Poe were never close. They more often picked a fight than had a civil conversation, but they tolerated each other for the sake of the people around them, before eventually accepting each other as some sort of surrogate family.

“… they still have each other, but you know how Finn is.“

She looks up and studies him for a while. She doesn’t really know what Finn and Poe’s deal is or was even back during the war. She knows Finn helped Poe escape. And maybe she has been jealous once, that her first friend had already made another one before her. Somehow their connection had always been different than the friendship between Finn and her.

Always imbalanced. With Poe’s gaze always lingering a bit longer and his smile always being a bit brighter.

What it would be like to be back before their smiles were robbed. When she still remembered everything clearly and not in fractions. _What had she done to herself?_

“And I just want him to be safe, during this mission.“ Poe looks up with something like fear in his eyes, fear of losing another important person, fear of her rejecting his clumsy attempt of a plea. There is so much more than what he can put into words.

The ship rattles as it surges again into hyperspace.

“I’ll try my best,“ Rey says quietly and she means it. Poe nods, shoulders relaxing a bit in relief. He opens his mouth but seems to have no idea what else to say, so he mutters a _thank you_ and leaves her alone with the realization that he is unable to lose another person he loves, even if that person is with somebody else.

* * *

**Core Worlds  
** **Corusca Sector, Coruscant System  
** **Coruscant**

When they land on Coruscant, it is early evening and the sun is hidden in an array of clouds, painting some of them golden, while others remain grey. The air is cool, but still humid, carrying the promise of a storm later in the night.

The landing pad is so high up, Rey cannot see the ground. Maybe there isn’t even a ground, just buildings stacked atop of each other. In a sense, it is its own kind of desert. Constructions of steel and glass stretching towards the sky, towards cleaner air, towards the possibility of a better life.

She shivers when the wind picks up. It is not not freezing cold but carries the memory of another storm, one that rustled her cape as she tried to keep up with a legend that had become something that seemed too human, too shattered. The ground beneath her becomes soft soil, soaking up the thin drizzle that is hitting her face as she struggles uphill.

She blinks.

“Ahch-to.“

A name she had suppressed rises from her lips. She quickly looks around but nobody has heard her, they are all busy greeting each other. She feels entirely out of place.

_Look at you, desert creature, thrown into a place that was not made for you. You should go back. Back where you do not have to shiver and watch people reuniting with those they dearly missed._

She watches Poe, Finn, and Rose hugging people, talking in hushed voices with beaten smiles on their faces.

 _Do the other also have nightmares_ , she wonders, _of the places they have forgotten?_

_Or do they daydream about the people they wish were still here?_

She exhales slowly; she should go back. Where there is no envy and smiling strangers and gathering clouds. Where there is none of this foreign thing, this anger that was once second nature. In another desert, in another h–

_Home?_

She grinds her teeth, the anger flaring from a spark to a flame.

 _Are you really there or is it just me slowly descending into madness?_ she thinks, although she wants to scream it from this ridiculously high landing pad above the darkness, above the misery. It is not where she belongs.

She belongs to the ground, the sand, the desert heat.

She belongs to a soul given in exchange for hers.

She belongs nowhere.

So she scurries back to what is familiar. It is the closest to normal she has. She looks at the sky and prays there will be no rain.

* * *

When they leave for Byss, she does not look back at the planet that is covered in buildings like others are covered in sand.

 _The trip will not take long_ , someone tells her and she nods.

_There are two other squads that left earlier today and another one that’s been scouting since the beginning of the week._

She nods again.

 _There will be a briefing in a few minutes to review the plan and update the schedule_.

She nods because what else is she supposed to do? They stare at the lightsaber at her hip and she shifts uncomfortably, once again hyper aware of the fact that she does not belong here.

_You have always been better at ignoring others than me._

She fidgets with the end of Rose’s shawl when one of the squad leaders, a woman who introduces herself as Jannah, asks Rey if she wants a uniform.

Rey once again nods.

She remembers Jannah, riding atop of a creature amongst the rustling grass of Endor’s moon. She remembers the whispers from the ruin in the ocean, where he appeared in a wrecked throne room. She wonders if there are more proposals made in throne rooms hidden away in her subconsciousness.

An image, she by his side in one not wrecked but wrapped in fabrics she could have never dreamed about.

_Foolish of me to think it could be that easy._

_But you would have at least still been there,_ she thinks. 

“You’re part of Finn’s squad, aren’t you?“ Jannah asks Rey, pulling her out of a future that will never be.

“Yes.“

“Nervous?“ Jannah crooks a smile.

_Terrified._

“A little.“ Rey tries to smile. She fails.

“You’ll manage. Finn is good at keeping his squads safe.“

_I just want him to be safe._

She nods absently, Poe’s words echoing in her skull. She hopes that she can, because she could not protect the other half of her soul. And the withered part that is left seems even less capable.

“You should get some rest.“ Jannah squeezes her shoulder and hands her the uniform.

“I’ll try,“ Rey says, as if there are no nightmares waiting for her.

* * *

**Somewhere between Coruscant and Byss**

She listens to the briefing of their plan on autopilot.

“They all sound the same,“ she remembers Rose whispering to her, “especially Poe’s. They are all like _get in there, take care, keep fatalities at a minimum, oh and when it is convenient blow something up!_ And then he always smiles at the General like it’s some inside joke or something.“

This one is not too different. Except there are no eyes searching for the General.

_She gave her life for him, so he could live. So he could breathe and grow old and not for him to die for me._

_What have I done?_

_It was my decision. And I would make it again in every lifetime._

She stares at Poe, voice tired and body beaten. And she wonders if she will ever be able to sleep again.

* * *

She stares at the swirling blues of hyperspace and she wonders if she could go back after this mission is done. Run back into the desert and forget everything all over.

How Rose has given all the porgs names. How Finn and her went late to the mess hall so they could eat without half the Resistance around. How Poe scolds her that she should be fighting with them out there.

How she reached out across lightyears for the hand of the man who they had proclaimed the enemy, but she instead found hope through two palms touching over fire light.

 _What has she done?_ she asks herself as she looks at her hands to fasten her arm guards and then back into the blue and wonders if one could drown in an image.

”We’re about to drop out of hyperspace,“ Finn tells her, his voice calm, almost careful, and she nods. There is nothing to say. As she runs her fingers over the lightsaber strapped to her back, she does not know why it feels more familiar like that; she has never worn it this way.

Maybe it is part of a memory that has not yet surfaced or maybe it was never her memory to begin with. Maybe it had been his.

She turns to Finn, who squeezes her arm and asks “You’re okay?“

“I’m not sure, to be honest.“

The ship rattles as they drop into real space and both their faces fall.

Finn visibly shivers and Rey registers _something_ , distantly.

It is cold and it ignites the frustration in the pit of her stomach again. Somewhere beneath buried memories she has a name for it.

Finn swallows thickly. “You’re ready?“

_Not one bit._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello there you made it to the section called notes alternatively know as the author has a nerd out and bombards you with wookiepedia links:
> 
> \- the title is taken from 26 of Jane Eyre (because I tried really hard to find a title from the poem the Anthology title is based on but found none sooo I decided to take a quote from the Anne Brontë's sister instead ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯)  
> \- the titles of the chapters refer to the 3 stages of a thunderstorm since that was my chosen force of nature for this anthology  
> \- [Tatooine](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Tatooine) in all its deserty glory  
> \- "A BB unit with a selenium drive, thermal hyperscan vindicator and internal self correcting gyroscopic propulsion system." Is from the interrogation scene in TFA  
> \- a [moisture vaporator](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Moisture_vaporator) (not an evaporator... no matter how much my auto correct tried to convince me otherwise)  
> \- [Byss](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Byss)  
> \- “It is you.“ is from the Force Awakens novelization after the Lightsaber flies into Rey's hand  
> \- [Kriff](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Kriff) or the Star Wars version of your good old F-word
> 
> I also have a half alive [tumblr](https://thegeekypoet.tumblr.com) where I don't really post anything but am happy to have a chat if you want to :)


	2. part 2: maturing stage

* * *

**Deep Core, Security Zone  
** **Beshqek System  
** **Byss**

_Tap._

One by one they fall.

_Tap._

Onto cauterized wounds.

_Tap._

Onto the ground.

_Tap._

Onto Rey’s skin. She grinds her teeth at the memory of waves churning around a wreckage where icy blue and crackling red met.

The frustration she felt then feels like an echo of her emotions now.

The sky had been clear when they landed.

_Tap-tap._

The droplets turn into drizzle. 

_Tap-tap._

Slowly.

_Tap-tap_

Gradually. With each body that hits the ground.

Drizzle turns to rain, frustration turns into anger. They are barely making progress, for every meter they claim, a shootout ensues.

She could cut them down, charging at them with all that she has. She could be the monster he claimed to be, in another place, where the rain had become one with the ocean.

_Tap-tap-tap._

“They’re just soldiers following orders,“ Finn told her.

_Tap-Tap-tap._

_I just want him to be safe._

_Tap-tap-tap._

She reigns her anger in, grinds her teeth and closely follows Finn.

_Tap-tap-tap._

She pulls him behind her, out of the line of blaster fire, and pierces the Stormtrooper’s armor in one fluid motion. It should terrify her how easy it is. Her lightsaber flashes like a beam of sunlight as it pierces through plastoid and leaves a molten mess of a corpse. It should terrify her how a part of her screams for more.

Finn gives her a look. “I had it under control.“

“You nearly had your head blown off,“ Rey remarks, pushing her back against the wall and surveying their surroundings.

“Save your anger for later,“ he tells her, like he is trying to say f _or those who deserve it_.

She clenches her teeth, biting her tongue. _And who are you_ , she wants to scream, _to tell who is deserving and who isn’t. Look at you, a soldier playing god with the odds stacked against him._

She thinks of confessions made in the main hold of their transport towards Coruscant earlier, about lighting and guilt and ungiven chances.

She tries to even her breathing. He is doing this for a reason, she knows, deep down she knows, but her anger is a bright thing, searing through reason.

_“Rose tells me not to lose myself in things that cannot be changed.”_

_And here you are_ , she bites back, _trying to change the unchangeable, so you might be able to sleep at night._

As rain turns into a downpour, anger descends into fury.

 _How are you not tired of losing, yet_? she wonders as she looks around the sodden landscape of destruction. They have not even made it into the main building yet.

“We have to move!“ another member of the other squad screams.

_A person without a name. Another soul begging to be lost._

There is something calling from the trees beyond, among the deep green, rich and silky.

_You are tired of losing, girl of dunes, aren’t you?_

She stares at the treeline, the whispering so low she barely makes out words. She wants to get closer, wants to know what she could hear—

Finn yanks her forward, a blaster bolt sinking into the wall where her head had been only seconds ago.

She stares at him, panting.

“Come on, we gotta go!“

She follows him into the building. The air seems to be crackling with delight at the building rage inside of her. It burns bright and hot against the icy temperatures they are leaving behind. It is oddly quiet inside, no troops to be seen, not a single person. Their soles make a squeaking sound in the silence as they march on.

Finn presses down on his earpiece and raises his hand, a signal to stop. The squeaking comes to a halt. Outside, thunder rolls around, menacing and low. That is when she registers it: the high, steady beep, next to her head, drowned out by the sound of their rain-soaked shoes before.

She and Finn’s gazes meet for a split second and she watches as realization dawns on him.

It is a trap.

They filled the whole compound with explosives. That is why there are no troops indoors.

It was all a plan.

They are standing in a ticking time bomb and all she can do is stare at Finn.

_I just want him to be safe._

She sees another man’s eyes. Deep brown and filled with joy, and she is stupid enough, happy enough, distracted enough, to notice what he has done. So she kisses him, whispers his name into the air between them and he smiles, one glorious, wonderful smile and he dies.

Because of her.

She will not repeat her mistakes.

The beep stops and the moment before lightning hits after the thunder stretches on into eternity. Rey has no idea if it is instinct, a reflex so deep she does not remember learning it. Maybe she will one day. Or maybe it is fate intervening. Laughing at her face. _You don’t get the easy way out._ Maybe it is her will to survive, carrying her back and forth from ruins in the desert to Niima Outpost with a body tormented by hunger and weakened by thirst.

Maybe it is the universe setting itself back on track.

She does not know.

And she never will.

There is another explosion near the entrance that releases first in one deafening boom and it is enough for everything that Rey has held back, held at bay, to rush back into her.

The pieces of light that are left among the desolation that has carved itself into her bones among dunes and drey winds. The onslaught of darkness, fed by this place and the way it whispers promises of greatness in her ear. She lets it all back in, the wave of memories and emotions suppressed by keeping her hands busy. 

_The pain._

And she reaches out, grasping, clawing for a spark that will soon wreck through them, splitting them into pieces.

Her whole body tingles, as if it had merely fallen asleep and now is awake again.

She finds the spark, finds the explosion about to erupt and turns it around, forces itself to collapse inward.

The boom is deafening and the effort brings her to her knees.

She can smell burned flesh and her ears are ringing.

Where is Finn? She cannot find Finn.

He shakes her by the shoulders, his lips moving without sound, there is only the ringing and it will not stop. _It will not stop._

He notices her not responding, so he pulls her to her feet and she sees the source of the smell of burning bodies.

The squad behind her had not made it as far as they did. The first explosion hid them with full force.

Sound returns slowly. She can hear somebody wailing; the sound rips her heart in two, as she watches the person clutching a half burned body to their chest. Slowly, she notices the corpses in the upper half of the corridor, ripped into pieces.

Finn pulls her along, screaming words after words after words.

All she makes out is _go_ and _trap_ and _outside_ and she blindly stumbles after him. His grip on her arm doesn’t waver, as she stares at the bodies littered behind them.

The ringing slowly subdues and she hears Finn yelling into the commlink at his wrist.

”Poe?! Poe can you hear me?!“

_I just want him to be safe._

_I kept him safe_ , she thinks numbly as they enter the courtyard and the rain hits her skin again.

It is different this time.

She senses life beyond the compound walls, she senses the death behind them. She can feel the panicked heartbeats of First Order officers, hiding behind walls so thick one could carve a home into them.

 _Those cowards,_ she thinks, _hiding in a maze of corridors, letting them be ripped apart by explosives._

She feels her lightsaber pressing into her back. And she senses more troops approaching.

They’re coming to clean up the mess.

Heartbeats are silenced.

Crying stops.

Lives flicker into nothingness.

And all Rey hears is the ringing in her eyes, the thunder above and Finn screaming into his commlink.

She clutches her ears, shivering in the rain.

” _You want them to pay, don’t you?“_ the deep green whispers.

” _Make them pay, girl of darkness. Make them pay.“_

Lightning illuminates the sky, and Rey can make out the Stormtroopers in the distance, can faintly hear the transport landing behind them.

_His smile is the brightest thing she has ever laid eyes on, the lightning around them dims in comparison._

She clenches her jaw.

” _Yes, make them bleed, take the revenge you have been waiting for. Let out the anger you tried to bury in the desert.“_

“Rey?“

She has walked back toward the compound, Resistance fighters rushing past her towards the transports.

Finn behind her is a bright thing.

Her hands are gripping her lightsaber like it is the answer to everything. Her knuckles turn white.

She feels a hundred heartbeats on the approach; she feels far less behind her.

She has to hold them off.

So that they can all make it to the transport.

Someone has to do it.

Or maybe Rey is just looking for a reason.

She knows the feeling now, boiling in the pit of her stomach, ever since they had landed.

She hears someone scream behind her to come back.

It is hunger.

_They’re just soldiers._

Yes, they are exactly that.

She charges, twin blades of light flaring to life among the fading daylight as the wave of troops washes into the courtyard, and she cannot help a smile from spreading over her face.

Her senses are wide open. She feels the little creatures scurrying into their nests, the plants digging their roots into ground, the wall of emotion before her, the wall of panic behind her.

They fall.

One by one they fall.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

Like raindrops.

Greedy thing that she is, thrusting for more she drinks it all in.

The smell of cauterized wounds and the water pouring down on her mix together as the wind picks up speed, howling through the compound. She is one with it when she brings up her saber, cutting through skin and muscle and bone. Her blades are made of sunlight and they run through them like thin air. She pauses, catching her breath for a moment as more troops rush in after the first squad lying at her feet. It is cold enough to make her breath visible. Short puffs of air float like little clouds towards the sky, as if to remind her that she is still human underneath it all.

Still fragile.

Still broken.

She lets out a battlecry and the thunder almost drowns it out.

The rain batters down around her, as if to make sure the bodies she has slain will truly stay dead. Everything around her is sharp and clear and she feels _alive_ , she realizes absently, blades tearing through more skin as she concentrates on dodging a blaster bolt. It cuts through all the numbness of the past few months. How she wants to bottle up the feeling. Keep it for when her throat is dry from desert winds again.

She soaks it in. A balm against the numbness. No, an ice cold current, a knife’s edge, a fire burning relentlessly, setting her nerve end aflame.

The death oozing out of the bodies around her is a stark contrast to the life beyond the walls, to the deep dark green purring _good_ and _more_ and _kill them all._

It feels electric, it feels intoxicating, the lightning around her illuminates the landscape in flashes, but she does not need it, she could find her enemies with her eyes closed.

She screams with the thunder and it whispers, _this is what you were made for, stardust merged into human form._

When the last body falls, she waits for the resolve. The content feeling of being finished.

_Rey._

His voice tears throughout the sharpness, softens the edges.

“Rey!“ Rose’s voice is hoarse behind her, as if she has been screaming for hours. Maybe she has, maybe she has not.

Rey stares at the field of bodies she left behind. There is no contentment, only more hunger, demanding to be satisfied. Demanding _more, kill all of them, hunt them down one by one, until your pain becomes theirs and your chains are broken and you are finally set free._

The rain evaporates on the twin blades of her lightsaber with a soft hiss.

_Rey._

She could weep with the need to paint the whole damn place red. There are more people, she knows, she has felt them hiding behind thick walls and congratulating themselves on their great plan. There is still more to do. More to eliminate. More to kill.

Let the remaining First Order bleed dry. Wherever they hide.

The Core.

The Western Regions.

The Outer Rim.

She wants it all to crumble like she thought it had already crumbled, because here drenched to the bone, illuminated by a weapon that shines like trapped daylight, she remembers it all.

 _Every_ single moment.

Sand washed away by the thunderstorm above and inside.

All she feels is the emptiness in the back of her mind and she wants it to _stop_. She wants what was once there _back_. She cannot keep going on like this. Reaching and reaching for nothing to manifest, for nothing to grow—

She shakes with the exertion of it, wrath knocked out of her lungs when she registers the sensation, after months and months of nothingness. Familiar and foreign all the same, like a new star being born and nebulas exploding.

_Like touching a live-wire inside of a starship._

Rose’s voice bleeds into white noise and Rey squints up into the darkness around the puffs of her breath. Lightning strikes, as if it is searching for the same thing she is.

The corpses around her cast long shadows from where he stands like a shadow of the past.

Rey holds her breath, because the emptiness is still gone.

Another flash of lightning.

Now that she knows where to look, it is enough. Enough to meet his eyes, gleaming in the darkness, enough for the name of a boy, who refused to be killed but died for her without hesitation, to slip past her lips.

It is barely more than a whisper; maybe the thunder drowns it out. Maybe the rain washes it away.

But it is enough because he lifts his head at the whispered promise of something she cannot put a name to.

It is enough to carry it through the field of death and rain towards him.

It is enough for the crumbling ruins of another Rey’s carefully crafted world to finally, definitively shatter.

”Ben.“

* * *

Her fingers feel numb and her veins like they are on fire.

He was there.

He is there.

She remembers.

She _remembers_.

The whole glorious tragedy, how could she ever forget…

The Rey on Tatooine might tell herself that she just imagined it. No. She would have told _herself_ that she might have imagined it.

Rey gulps in the frosty air as someone pulls her into the shuttle.

It is _all_ her, running together in messy curves and lines. There is no clear cut between this Rey and that Rey.

She stares back into the darkness as the shuttle ramp closes.

He was there.

And now he is not.

The emptiness returns as the shuttle takes off. The person who had yanked her inside a bright echo in the Force.

_The Force._

It amplifies the emptiness in the back of her mind by the wrath of a hundred suns. She remembers why she cut herself off now, remembers the crystal wailing, remembers the _pain_.

The air in the shuttle is warm and still she shivers. The planet below almost oozes with the darkside. Like some part of her grandfather's twisted empire has become a living, breathing thing.

There are so many voices around her but she hears none of them. Drowned out by her heartbeat as the storm outside tugs and tears at the ship.

She feels like combusting. She has to calm down. Three deep breaths and she closes her eyes.

_You did what you did. You kept them safe, there is no place for fury now._

But it had felt _so good_ , letting loose, letting go. Tearing through them all, remnants of the past and poison of the future.

And then the bond reconnected.

It is still there.

He was there. Somehow. Right there, in front of her.

She wants him back and she wants more and—

“Rey?“ Rose crouches down in front of her and gently touches her arm. “Rey? You should get in some dry clothes.“

She nods absently and lets herself be guided into the upper lever, as the ship continues fighting the storm. She concentrates on Rose’s hand leading her and the small flickering flame that has come to live inside of her. It burns and burns. They walk back to where Rey had changed into the uniform earlier. Upon staring at her faded desert clothes, she finds the word for that flame. It is the same thing they build a Resistance on.

_Hope._

If Rey knows one thing, it is that hope in the desert quickly turns delusional. It hits her like lightning.

“I’m not going back,“ she tells Rose, and there is no doubt left. She still sees him standing among the darkness, eyes fixed onto her.

She suddenly wants to tell Rose, wants leave a part of the burden behind, she—

“We’ll figure something out,“ Rose squeezes her hand tightly and turns around to leave, but Rey doesn’t let go. She cannot be alone now. She just can’t.

Her voice is hoarse with unshed tears when she says, “I remembered.“

She cannot keep them from spilling down her cheeks. She has carried their weight with her for months, she had not even realized the burden until this moment. She presses the palm of her hand against her mouth, trying to keep the sobs in.

“I’m sorry,“ she hiccups, feeling very stupid for starting to cry.

“It’s alright.“ Rey flinches when she feels Rose touching her arm again and then is quickly hauled into a hug. “It’s alright.“

Now Rey sobs in earnest. “I don’t…. I don’t know how-how I could have forgotten him.“

The darkness dwindles. Her anger vanished leaving only the bitter taste of sadness behind.

“So you really lost someone,“ Rose murmurs into Rey’s shoulder. “And we didn’t even notice. I am so sorry, Rey.“

“It’s alright,“ she mumbles.

“No, it isn’t.“ Rose only hugs her tighter.

“I forgot about all of you,“ Rey whispers.

“You were hurting, it’s okay.“ Rose rubs soothing circles on her back.

“No–no you don’t understand, I just forced myself to—“ She breaks into a new sob. “I’m so sorry, so, so sorry.“

“Shhh.“ Rose just holds her while she stands there crying months’ worth of tears. “There is nothing to be sorry about.“

Rey wants to tell her that he is out there somehow, that she has seen him, that—

She stops herself. How could she ever make somebody else understand? How can she put something into words that was not made to be described? How can she tell her without sounding outright insane? How to make her understand, so she believes her? How…

“You should come to Finn’s and my place,“ Rose tells her, “It’s nice, sunny, _green_. I think you might like it.“

Rey nods into her shoulder, unable to say anything. The tears slowly lessen.

“We can go right after we land back on Coruscant, maybe get Poe and stay away for a week. We could all use it.“

Rey nods, hugging her back, clinging to her like a child.

“And whenever you ready to talk—“

“I owe him my life,“ Rey murmurs, unable to stop herself. “And I just forgot. That he died to—“ Rey breaks into a new sob.

Rose pulls away, searching for her eyes. “That’s not your fault.“

“It is. I should have done something, but I–I just…“

“Shhh.“ Rose continues to rub Rey’s back. “It’s not your fault.“

But it kind of is, is it not?

She remembers. The waves and thunder roared as she grabbed his weapon, that cracked thing, cracked like his heart. She rammed the blade right between his ribs. She tries not to think too much about the look on his face. Instead she cries the whole way back to Coruscant.

* * *

**Core Worlds  
** **Bormea Sector, Corulus System  
** **Corulag**

She must have fallen asleep. She remembers hazily boarding another ship on the same landing pad they docked on after they left Tatooine. High in the sky among darkness and city lights. But after that… everything is a blur of exhaustion.

She feels horrible, feverish. Her eyes are crusty and her head hurts like hell. Rey kicks a blanket off of her and the rush of fresh air helps a little with the heat.

She blinks, confused at her surroundings. The room is small, with wooden floors and a huge window running alongside one wall, the blinds drawn against the golden light of a setting sun. There are two doors and two bedside tables, one with a glass of water on it. She sits up and gulps it down greedily, stopping after a moment to remind herself not to empty it in one go.

The first of the two doors opens into a fresher, where she finds a spare of clothes neatly folded on top of a counter. They smell like flowers and soft things and she wants to bury her nose in the fabric and breathe it in until she can carry the smell with her. She slips into the fresher instead, the cold water pleasant against her heated skin.

But even afterwards her eyes are still swollen and there are creases from the pillow on her cheek.

 _How long has she slept?_ she wonders as she puts the clothes on. The fabric is smooth, nicer than anything she has worn the last few months.

Hours?

Days?

Time seemed to have become irrelative in the deep black of exhaustion.

She tries to detangle her hair and gives it up after a few seconds, simply shoving it into a bun at the nape of her neck, before starting to brush her teeth. She ponders for a moment whether she should just stay in the room, mulling over what happened on Byss, but then her stomach rumbles and she decides that there will be time for that later.

When she opens the other door, she hears voices at the end of the hallway.

“How could they have known about the plan?“

“Apparently they have found a mole in the scouting team.“

“Any trace?“

“Vanished into the Outer Rim.“

“Great.“ Poe leans back in his chair when Rey enters what appears to be the main area of the house.

“Hey, how are you feeling?“ Finn asks her from behind a kitchen counter with a mug of caff in his right hand.

“Disoriented — where are we?“

“Corulag,“ Poe informs her while he continues to type away at a computer. Rey shoots Finn a questioning look.

“Rose’s and my place… she said she talked with you about it?“

Rey only nods in response, staring out the windows behind the table. There are fields of high grass stretching towards the horizon with occasional trees dotted throughout.

“It’s … very green,“ she finally says.

Finn sends a grin her way, “Do you want something to eat? We still have leftovers from dinner.“

She nods and a few minutes later she sits opposite of Poe with a plate packed to the brim in front of her as well as another glass of water. She tries to pace herself, not having noticed how hungry she is.

“So there is no chance of getting them?“ Poe resumes his and Finn’s conversation from earlier.

Finn raises an eyebrow in response.

Rey swallows down a bite before asking, “Where’s Rose?“

“Outside, looking after the Fathiers. She should be back in a few minutes,“ Finn tells her as she resumes eating and nods in response again.

“They will drag me through the mud because of this.“ Poe sighs as he pushes away from the table and gets up. “Where did all the caff go?“

“You drank it,“ Finn says without missing a beat. “You seriously have a caffeine problem, you know that right?“

“You would too if your political opponent had no apparent life of their own and was just waiting to tear you to shreds.“

“Why are you doing it then?“ Rey interrupts.

Poe opens his mouth and closes it again. Luckily for him, this is the moment Rose enters the through the kitchen door.

“Rey, you’re awake!“

Rey once again merely nods, since her mouth is still full with whatever that delicious stuff on her plate is.

Rose presses a kiss to Finn’s lips and both Rey and Poe find themselves quickly looking the other way, one reminded of the love he can never have and the other of the one that might still be out there to save.

Rey continues to eat in silence for a little while longer, while Poe switches to tapping furiously on a data pad and Rose and Finn exchange whispers back and forth in the kitchen. If what happened on Byss was not some sort of dark side hallucination, Rey has to find a way to reopen the bond again and if the bond is truly not gone then maybe, just maybe there is a chance. She tries to dampen down the flame that wants to burst into an inferno, because she had enough of delusions.

On the other hand she needs some answers.

“Finn, do you still have the books? The ones that I gave you?“

His forehead creases for a moment, “Yes they should be here somewhere, why?“

_Why?_

_What is she supposed to tell him?_

_Ah, you know, Force stuff, trying to find out whether I am truly going insane or if there might actually be a possibility of bringing back the person whose death led me to isolate myself for months in the desert, almost going insane. I think you know him, although as far as I remember you were never on truly good terms…_

It is Rose who saves her. “They’re in the office.“

“You mean what is supposed to be the office,“ Poe murmurs, eyes still trained on the data pad.

Rose ignores him, still talking to Rey. "Let me shower and then I will get them for you?“

Rey nods and eats up while Rose vanishes down the hallway.

* * *

“I swear they should be here somewhere,“ Rose mutters from behind a pile of boxes. “Ha!“

Rey almost flinches at the happy exclamation followed by a sneeze.

“You ok?“

“Brilliant,“ Rose comments as she hands her a cardboard box. Rey takes it, her gaze fixed on the landscape in front of the window, where dusk had fallen over fields and trees.

“We haven’t really finished our talk,“ Rose continues, “after what happened on the way back from Byss.“

“I don’t know what to tell you, to be honest,“ Rey murmurs.

“Hm.“ Silence fills the space between them for a while. “What do you need them for?“ Rose finally asks, pointing towards the books.

Rey sighs, of course she would want to know. “If I tell you, you’ll think I’m insane.“

Rose merely raises an eyebrow. Rey turns towards her for a moment, then looks back out of the window, where a porg tugs its young into the nest for the night.

“If there was a possibility to bring back someone you lost, would you do it?“

Rose exhales slowly, “Rey, whoever you lost is gone.“

“I thought that, too,“ she whispers. “Now I am not so sure anymore. Hope is a dangerous thing.“

Rose joins her in front of the window, watching the porgs. “It can be.“

“Maybe I am just losing my mind.“

“It can feel like that.“

“I thought I saw him, no I was _sure_ and the Force…“ Rey lets out a frustrated huff. “It’s complicated.“

Rose lets out a dry laugh. “Isn’t it always?“

“I don’t know what to do,“ she whispers.

“You don’t have to do anything.“

“But what if there is a possibility that he is still …“ alive? Lost somewhere in the ether of the Force?

Rose squeezes her arm. “Denial is a part of grieving you know.“

“Yes, but this is _different,_ “ Rey stutters. “I just can’t _explain_.“

“Well maybe those will help,“ Rose shrugs pointing towards the books. “Just be careful, hope can be good, but…“

“Also quickly turn into delusion,“ Rey finishes.

“How the General would frown on us, giving up on hope.“ Rose smiles.

Rey lets out a low _hm,_ watching the porgs settling in for the night.

“I took some of them with me after Exegol,“ Rose explains after a while. “They seemed lost.“

“It’s good to know,“ Rey murmurs, “that they have a home now.“

* * *

Rey spends the rest of the week mostly holed up in her room pouring over one book after the other and she finds _nothing_. A thousand years of knowledge and history and somehow both their fates are destined to slip through the pages. There is not even a mention of a bond or a dyad.

_Nothing._

Anger rises like a tide within her, and she wants to chuck them against the wall. The bright burning hope has dimmed and soured and become something ugly, spiteful, all consuming.

She wants to scream, she wants to cry, she wants to slap herself for being so foolish.

She can hear them talking, Rose and Finn, concerned whispers exchanged in the hallway and desperation always formed with the same words, what can we do, what can we do, _what can we do?_

If this is what grief feels like, she wants nothing of it; she wants to crawl back into the desert and let the sun burn away her tears.

The second night of her fanatic research, she pads towards the kitchen quietly to get some caff. It may taste terrible but it keeps her awake. She nearly freezes when she finds Poe sitting there illuminated by the three moons outside the window.

Poe of course notices her.

His haggard features are even more pronounced in the moonlight. He looks like a haunted man and maybe that is the thing that makes them alike, him and her, unable to let go of the past or to take hold of what the future could bring.

“Can’t sleep, huh?“

“Don’t want to,“ she murmurs in response.

“Finn has hidden the caff, if you’re searching for that,“ he tells her, eyes reflecting the moonlight.

She nods and sits down on the sofa opposite to him.

“What has you losing sleep, Miss Jedi?“

“Don’t call me that,“ she whispers.

“Okay.“

They fall into silence for a moment then, staring at the grass gently swaying in the breeze.

“You think the dying would stop after one has won a war. But here we are, standard mission, scout team and everything and a loss rate of over fifty percent.“

Guilt, she understands, is a feeling they all carry with them. She wonders what story Rose has to tell, and if she would tell it, if Rey asked.

_How the General would frown on us._

“Seems like death and fighting go hand in hand,“ she murmurs.

“Yeah,“ he responds, “seems like it.“

They meet each night after that, sitting in silence watching the moons chase each other across the night sky while the grass sways softly. There are only stars and silence to keep them company. It doesn’t make the pain go away, but somehow there is comfort to be found in suffering with someone by your side.

* * *

They do not become friends really. They probably never will, so she will not admit that she misses their nightly meetups when Poe leaves at the end of the week.

The words are locked up in prison she has made for them. She starts wandering the fields at night instead and the grass caresses her legs, or maybe reaches, grasps, ready to claw her underground. She does not know, nor does she care. She sits below the trees, looking up at the sky and wonders if between hyperlanes and constellations he is out there, waiting to be found.

Those nights feel as if they are carved out of time. There are no concerned eyes watching her and no whispers in the hallway.

_You are nothing but a constant worry._

Poe may not have thought much about it, words scolded in a moment of resentment, but oh how right he was.

She does not know what to do, to stop them from noticing the bags beneath her eyes, the way she barely eats.

The days, on the other hand, seem to run by and drag on at the same time. They eat breakfast together every morning. Sometimes it is all of three of them, sometimes it is just Rose and her, but mostly it is Finn who she sits with at the table, clutching a cup of sweet tea.

“No caffeine until you sleep better,“ he tells her and Rey does not mind. She never liked the taste anyway.

She starts meditating during the mornings, sitting down in the field behind the house or under the tree where the porgs have built their nest.

With her old routine of work in the desert gone, she quickly gets itchy, desperate to move. The afternoons are spent running through saber forms. Sometimes Finn joins her, sometimes she tries to teach him how to push something away with the Force, but he likes sparring more.

It is nice, she thinks, having someone to do things with. But it does not stop the emptiness in her soul from growing.

She tries not to think of Ben too much and that in turn feels like another sort of betrayal, but his name comes to her late at night in desperate sobs that shake her whole body.

Ben. Ben. _Ben_.

Sometimes she walks away from the house in the cover of darkness, far enough away so nobody will hear her when she screams her lungs raw. The wind rises and carries her misery to places farther away. Like it used to carry the sand, when she sat in the darkness of a crumbling moisture farm denying the truth.

Sometimes she does not get out of bed at all, sometimes she lies there all night staring at the moons rising and falling and wakes with a tiredness so deep in her bones she thinks she will never shake it.

* * *

Time has become an irrelevant thing again, when she falls asleep while meditating under the trees one day and she dreams. It does not turn into a nightmare, and it is not the deep dark emptiness of exhaustion either.

Ben is with her, and he whispers her name like a prayer into her hair and he holds her as she cries and he tells her everything will be alright.

That she is stronger than this.

That she has gone to hell and back.

That she is bigger than this.

That she is grace and she is kindness and so much more.

_And she believes him._

* * *

When Rey comes to herself, her cheeks are dry and she feels like she has slept forever. The sun is setting, painting the landscape golden and her eyes glaze over with light and dark, the past and the future and for the first time — the present.

_There is a storm raging around her, through her, within her._

_It consumes her._

Is _her._

_“What are you willing to give?“ a creature made of shadows and sunlight asks her and she cannot help but whisper, “everything“ in return._

_You have fought so long._

_Against the heat._

_Against death._

_Against yourself._

_Darkness is a part of the whole, it is not determined by bloodline._

_Find me._

_Find yourself._

_Desert child._

_Girl of ruins._

_The planet she is on is so rich with life, so suffocating with death, so much of everything._

_Two moons, one shadow, one light and the ruin of a temple older than the Order that build it._

_You keep hiding._

_You keep running._

_Come home._

_Come home._

Come home.

She opens her eyes to a field frozen in time. The winds have stopped, the clouds have stopped, and there is the name of a place in the back of her mind, a set of coordinates erased from the history books.

* * *

There is no breeze when she makes her way back to the house. The grass remains unmoving; the only testament of time still moving forward are the whispers that carry themselves through the kitchen door.

“We have to do something, I thought she would get better here.“

“Something happened on Byss and I thought it meant nothing but now she vanished for the whole day…“

“Maybe we should take her to—“

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.“

“I didn’t even finish the sentence.“

“I still don’t think it’s _a good idea_.“

They go as still as the grass outside when she enters the house, quietly, without a rush. She does not want to meet their eyes, acknowledge the fact that she heard them. Her voice sounds too loud when she finally opens her mouth. “I didn’t know we had guests.“

It snaps them into action and Finn awkwardly clears his throat and waves towards the two women standing next to the dinner table, “Rey, you remember Jannah and Connix?“

Rey nods absently. “Is Poe here, too?“

She has no idea why she asks; they are not friends after all. It is just nice to share the silence of your sleepless nights with someone. She does not tell them. She never will.

“No, he remained back on Coruscant. Too busy campaigning. He sends his regards though,“ Connix informs her.

She should not ask. It is a stupid question to ask. She blurts it out anyway, “Does he sleep now?“

Connix seems confused, “What?“

“Doesn’t matter,“ Rey murmurs, shifting uncomfortably from one foot to the other. She glances at Rose and the papers and data pads strewn over the table they are standing around. “I’ll let you get back to work then,“ she says and tries to smile. It still feels wrong and she does not look back when she vanishes down the hallway.

Connix does not even wait until she has closed her bedroom door, “Still I think we should just—“

“And I still think it’s a bad idea,“ Rose scolds her.

“You have no idea what I am about to say!“

“I know Poe well enough,“ Rose voice drips poison, “and he won’t make her another symbol to associate with him, just so he can win the seat.“ She sighs. “It’s the last thing she needs right now.“

“Maybe they’re right,“ Finn interjects, voice calm, gentle. “Maybe she needs a change of scenery.“

“Because that helped so much the last time,“ Rose retorts.

“Rose—“ 

“I lost a sister without a piece of her to bury, so don’t lecture me about losing people.“ She pauses, takes a deep exhale, and then says, “Now, can we please finish this treaty?“

Rey tries to let their following discussion blend into white noise as she walks back towards her books. They are sprawled over the floor; she left them in a neat stack. One lies open to a page with a crude star-map drawn by hand. She recognizes the system from the vision under the trees.

Tython.

And Rey understands that she is done waiting.

* * *

“I need a ship.“

“Huh?“ Finn looks up from the pot he is currently stirring.

“I need a ship,“ Rey repeats matter of factly.

“For what, if I might ask?“ Rose pipes up from behind Finn chopping what appears to vegetables.

“To go somewhere.“

Rose sighs and abandons the vegetables to walk towards her. “Rey, is it because of what we were talking when you came back—“

“No,“ Rey fidgets with her right sleeve.

“We’re just concerned, we didn’t mean to—“

“You don’t have to be concerned anymore.“ She holds Rose’s gaze, jaw set and then her voice softens, “ _I found something_.“

Rose shoots Finn a look over her shoulder, but he keeps on stirring whatever is in the pot. She gestures Rey to follow her outside, before she exchanges a few hushed words with Finn who gives her a pitying smile. It somehow makes the anger rise again, but she swallows it down, following Rose instead.

They walk towards the tree line in silence. Maybe Rose is searching for words, maybe she wants to take in the peaceful quiet before she starts whatever she is about to tell Rey. They stop when they reach the shade of the trees.

“The last time we talked, I told you—“

“I know,“ Rey interrupts her, “but this is different.“

Rose turns towards her with something like pain in her eyes. “When I lost Paige, I… I also would have done anything to get her back, but boarding a ship and flying somewhere will not do that.“

“This is not like that,“ she insists frustrated. “It is not some empty delusion this is real, this is—“

Rose gentle squeezes her hand, “It’s okay to want him back, it’s normal—“

“ _No,_ you don’t understand!“ Rey screams, breath coming out in short puffs. They stare at each other for a beat before she continues her voice softer, “We were connected through the Force and—“

“Rey,“ Rose squares her shoulders, “I have seen enough people tear themselves apart over grief. Do you think I don’t notice? How barely anyone around me sleeps through the night anymore? How there’s always a pair of feet shuffling around here way past midnight? Do you think I have not felt the same pain, just because I have felt it before and know how to hide it?“

“I—“

“Don’t,“ Rose eyes turn cold. “I am tired of people around me suffering in silence, like it is some noble cause. When it is anything but. There are still people out here that exist, that breathe, that _live_. And it is hard… it isn’t easy, but when has anything good ever been easy.“

“The easy choice,“ Rey says, “would be to haul myself up to my room and cry myself to sleep like I have done for the past months, always wondering about what ifs and maybes. The easy thing to do would be to ignore it, to find another routine and drown it all out. I’m not going because it is easy. I am going because I know I will never be able to let this go if I just keep sitting by, while you all move on with your lives!“

Rose looks at her for a long moment, “You remember, how we said that hope can quickly turn delusional?“

Rey directs her eyes to the field. “I am not asking for permission to leave.“

Rose lets out a low hum, “I never expected you to.“

“I just _need_ to do this and I need you to trust me.“ Her eyes follow the porgs in front of the library window.

Rose sighs, “Whoever he is, I am sure he would want you to let it be.“

“He has done enough stupid things to let this one slide,“ Rey murmurs. Sacrificing himself for her was just the last thing on the list.

“Rey…“ Rose’s tone is pleading.

“I have made up my mind,“ Rey says.

“Yeah, you’re not asking for permission, I got that.“

“Just a ship,“ she reminds her.

“ _A ship_ ,“ Rose echos staring ahead letting out a long breath, “Just one more question,“ she turns to back to Rey. “Do I know him?“

Rey tries to suppress the small smile that tugs at the corner of her lips, as her voice turns soft again, “Under another name, I am sure, but the one he was born with, the one that matters most is Ben.“

* * *

It looks expensive, the ship. All sharp lines and clear edges. Rey is almost afraid to touch it, fearing it might fall apart.

“Is there… not another ship i can have?“ she asks.

“Not so intent on leaving now or what?“ Finn smirks, as he hands her a bag. She raises an eyebrow, and he smiles back, “For your journey.“

She wraps her finger around the handle. “Thank you.“

“No problem,“ Finn responds.

“For everything,“ Rey meets his eyes and she hopes he can see the honesty in hers.

“It’s what friends are for,“ he reminds her and she nods with a small smile. “Well,“ he says, “I hope this isn’t goodbye for long.“

She shakes her head, “Although I don’t know what you will think of me when I make it back.“

He squeezes her arm. “You’re my first friend and you will always be that, no matter what.“

_Even if you knew what I am trying to do, what I am hoping will happen?_

She swallows down the lump in her throat and forces herself to nod.

The hug she gives him is bones crushing. The one he returns even more. They stand there for a moment and then she pulls back, he nods at her and she knows it is time to go.

* * *

She runs preflight checks like she has been doing it all her life.

She smiles, but this time it is just to herself.

Maybe a part of her has.

It is not a long journey but a difficult one. There are no coordinates she can put into the ship computer. Her destination, a word and an array for coordinates, vanished from official star maps into obscurity, but Rey has done the same. When Tython finally looms in front of her flanked by its two moons, she watches the clouds coiling in the atmosphere the closer she gets.

She is suddenly wrecked by a moment of doubt.

What if Rose is right?

If it is all just delusions?

If there is only more pain, only more memories of a future that will never be.

She shakes her head, sets her jaw.

_Then I will bear it._

* * *

**Deep Core  
** **Tython System  
** **Tython**

The planet is strange. It is not necessarily a place of light or darkness; it is amplified by something she cannot put into words. It is just so _much_.

Life. Death. Decay and rebirth. Everything has a presence in the Force, screaming at her and lulling into silence at once. It reminds her of the ringing in her ears, after the bomb on Byss exploded.

The air is so humid that it is hard to breathe as she hikes up the hill to the crumbling structure at the top.

Once again doubt twists its way into her mind.

What is she expecting?

What is she hoping for?

“What do you think you will find here?“

It takes her a moment to realize that the last question was not one she asked herself.

She turns her head to the person who has appeared beside her in a faint blue glow. He crooks his head, light brown curls falling into his forehead, blue eyes piercing.

She has not spoken to a whole lot of force ghosts.

Only one, to be honest.

But he has almost a physical presence here, like she could reach out and touch him. It must be the planet amplifying everything.

“Answers.“

“Ah,“ he grins. It is nothing like the smiles she has seen her friends wear, this one is carefree, broad, reaching into the farthest corners of his face. “But do you know the question?“

Rey grits her teeth and continues to her hike. “I have no time for this.“

He follows her effortlessly, grin still in place. “But you don’t know what _this_ even is.“

She tries to ignore him but his features remind her of someone. She has seen the same piercing blue eyes before, the same tall frame.

He hangs back a bit, as if he is taking in the scenery. “I remember this place,“ he murmurs cocking his head before he vanishes and appears at her side again.

“Great,“ Rey huffs annoyed.

“Do you really think some crumbling ruins will give you answers? Or is it the Order that built it?“

She does not answer, because she does not want to, because she cannot.

“I would really advise against it. I would have given everything to them once, although they did end up with my limbs.“ He shrugs nonchalantly and she flashes him a weird look, eyeing his very intact legs and arms.

“Seriously, I wouldn’t waste my time, although generally speaking I am not the best to take advice from.“

“Really? Very helpful,“ Rey retorts, taking a break to look towards the temple ruins. She is almost there.

He does the same thing again, where he vanishes and appears again next to her. It is unnerving, “You’re full of doubt, full of conflicting emotions. They don’t like that, you know? Didn’t like that back when I was a Padawan and it scared the shit out of my son, for some reason,“ he sighs. “I mean, I cannot blame him, his nephew is a bit of an idiot, although I could not expect anything less from a grandson of mine.“

Rey stops mid-track and turns back to him, “You’re Darth Vader.“

The young man in front of her makes a face, “Among other things.“ He vanishes again, appearing farther ahead just a split second later.

Rey lets out an annoyed huff, scrambling to catch up with him. “Anakin Skywalker then, I remember. I heard your voice on Exegol.“

“And I see you have not really taken my words to heart.“

“I—“ Rey stops, “ _what?_ “

“Then again this whole rising thing? Turned out not so great.“ He vaguely gestures with his hands.

Her annoyance turns from mild to all consuming. “Could you just tell me what you want to tell me? I am here to—“

“Raise my grandson from the dead?“ He quirks an amused eyebrow at her.

Rey lets out a grunt as she reaches the top of the hill and the entrance to the temple ruins.

“The problem, you see, is that he’s kinda not really dead, per se.“

“What?“

He grins at her again, “This bond thing you two have? Keeps him somewhere else. I don’t know where exactly but he isn’t here with the rest.“ He pauses for a moment studying the structure in front of them. “This place won’t bring him back though, and there is nothing here to heal. For that you have to look inward.“

She looks at him in confusion and his face softens, “The life that has led you here was not easy. I recall you died along the way once. That leaves marks in one’s soul and they can fester and become a constant source of pain, I know, believe me.“

“What am I supposed to do then?“

He smiles. “Remember that a soul cannot be revived, only mended. One reunited can never be broken in two again.“

“What is that supposed to mean?“

He grins. “Healing is not easy for people like us, raised in the sands of a dead world, but it is not impossible.“

He starts to turn translucent, vanishing this time into a place where she cannot follow. She is left with a rising wind and gathering clouds, wondering what to do now, when there is a whisper carried by the rain drops that kiss her skin.

_Find me._

_Find me, desert child._

_Stop running._

_Come home._

Rey turns her head towards the sky, where the darker of the moons looms like an omen unwilling to be overlooked.

_Come home._

Rey takes a deep breath. This better be worth it.

* * *

Getting to said moon is more complicated than she had expected. The storm tosses her ship like a toy between rising winds and gigantic clusters of clouds. After she somehow makes it out of the atmosphere, her controls start to flicker, and the ship is tugged by a gravity field she should have long left behind. Then half her engines seem to stall out and die.

She stares ahead at the even darker clouds swirling in the moon’s atmosphere. Anger is bubbling under her skin like a living, breathing thing. If this is the right thing to do, then why does it seem like the universe is fighting against her?

_Not the universe, darling girl, you._

She grinds her teeth.

_Stop fighting against your own soul, let go._

Rey tentatively lets go of the controls, closes her eyes and hopes against all odds that she will make it out in one piece.

* * *

**beyond**

When she opens her eyes, she does not know where she is. Darkness is all around and her breathing seems to echo back from the emptiness.

The cockpit has vanished. The moon has vanished. Where is she?

This does not even feel like a place, more like a moment carved out of time beyond the reality she knows. Like a second between heartbeats stretched into eternity and nothingness crafted into a room without end.

She flinches when a high scream cuts through the silence.

_Come back!_

She tries to ignore the hair at the back of her neck rising and the fear rushing through her as she turns around, stumbling forward, searching for the source of the voice.

_Come back!_

It is her own, younger and panicked, echoing the emotions she feels now. Still she cannot make out the source. She taps around blindly, repeating the words in a hushed whisper, “Come back.“

_I’m here, I am right here._

“Ben?“

There is a rush of color, images, and sensations. She feels the burning heat setting the inside of her lungs aflame and she is back on Jakku, watching her parents leave.

“Tell me–“ A voice booms through the inside of her skull and the scene before her eyes shifts. The burning heat turns into icy cold and snow flakes crown her head.

_“It is you.“ His voice is full of awe among winter’s desolation and her nerve endings are on fire with panic and resolve, when icy blue illuminates her features._

“—child of dunes and desperation—“

 _“Don_ ’ _t go this way.“ The future she has seen is raining down in flames around her and his gaze turns from molten iron to steel._

“—what are you willing to give?“

_“Ben.“ She cannot keep her smile from spreading, hands cupping his face, the pure utter joy of finally—_

She is yanked out of her own memory, pushed back into darkness, back into oblivion. Her own panting breath echoes again among the nothingness and her knees hit the ground like it is solid stone.

Rey looks up at the figure in front of her, translucent light made of shadows, and her eyes burn with tears. When she replies her voice sounds breathless., “ _Everything_.“

She sees a thousand places through millennia in the span of seconds. Forests, Cities, oceans, wastelands, where nothing ever grows, civilization rising and crumbling to pieces all at once.

The creature huffs out a laugh. “Everything?“

_Two pieces of a soul falling into place and are ripped away from each other again._

Rey nods one lone tear running down her cheek. “ _Everything_.“

“Have you learned nothing then?“

Rey looks up, confused.

The creature laughs, “They have taken everything and still you are willing to give more. No wonder the darkness was never the end for you. So willing to give. So willing to please for just a scrap of human dignity…“

_She can feel the sting of the hand that has slapped her across the face, as her tiny self reaches up to cup her cheek._

_“What you brought me is worth nothing!“ Unkar Plutt’s voice bellows in the heat around them._

_“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,“ the younger Rey cries and wails and he leaves her right there amongst the skeletons of ships with nothing. No water, no food, no civilization._

_She watches herself grow from a scrawny kid to a willowy adolescent and her younger self turns towards her, eyes deep with sorrow and accusing._ “You did this to me.“

Rey wants to respond, wants to tell her that everything will be alright—

But she is pulled away again.

_“Still,“ the voice is silky smooth, “you’re so afraid of who you are, of what you could be.“_

_Rey stares at the version of herself she encountered in the ruins of the second Death Star. The room around them is all dark steel and giant windows._

_“What you could have been, had you only taken the hand extended to you, but instead you decided to suffer.“_

_There is a crown digging into her temples and a warm body next to hers in bed._

_The figure of darkness evaporates before her, and a whisper is all that remains._

“You did this to me.“

_She watches her mother’s features contorted in pain, her father’s body lifeless on the ground, or maybe it is the other way around. The memory is hazy, warped, not her own._

_But the scream is piercing._ “You did this to me.“

_Rey gasps for air and watches Poe’s haggard features turning towards the moonlight, watches Finn clinging to Rose after another nightmare, watches Rose’s accusing features under the trees, searching for a grave that will never be._

_They all whisper the same phrase,_ “You did this to me.“

_The flashes stop, she finds herself on the ruins of a planet killer and waves lapping around her, she feels a war hero, a general, a mother reaching out to her only child, giving everything that she has out of pure desperation as she slips into death like a whisper passed late at night._

_She pushes his weapon into his ribcage, running through bones, through muscle, through his lungs without resistance. A part of her is pleased with the utter look of shock on his face. The background changes. They are on the cold stone floor of a place made of darkness. She holds his face between her palms and shock turns to surprise turns to accusation._

_His whisper is that of a boy afraid of the dark, afraid of another loved person’s betrayal._ “You did this to me.“

A strong wind tears at her clothes, and she faintly notices thunder. There is a ship groaning and lightning flashing behind her closed eyes somewhere that is not here, that might not be real. Is this even real? It does not stop the feeling of a storm tearing her apart.

“Child,“ the creature’s voice is gentle now, “when will you understand? You are the storm. Control it or let it consume you. The choice is yours.“

 _No_ , she thinks, trying to blink the tears away.

 _No_ , there is another way.

 _“You did this to me.“_ The echo of a thousand voices proclaims and the guilt seems unbearable.

 _Guilt_ , she remembers, _is a feeling they carry all with them._

The creature laughs, “Ah, but you carry a burden fit for a whole galaxy, don’t you?“

Rey squares her shoulders. “And I will bear it.“

“It is not a question of bearing, dear, it is one of letting it go.“

She is sucked back into a memory.

_“He will find her.“ Her mother’s voice is drenched with panic._

_“I know.“ Rey looks at her father’s grim face._

_“We have to keep her safe, hide her somewhere he will never find her.“_

“They sold you,“ the creature remarks nonchalantly, somewhere in the back of her head.

“They did what they had to protect me,“ Rey responds as she stares at her parents.

“But still what a cruel thing to do. You hate them for it.“

She clenches her teeth.

“Deep down you hate them for it passionately. And they died like the pigs they were.“

_Blood hits the floor._

_Tap._

_Tap._

_Tap._

_The desert sun would have swallowed it up._

“It is the oldest feeling you tried to suppress.“

Rey looks at them, dead on the ground again. And she feels pain and one bit of twisted

satisfaction.

“I do,“ she realizes.

“Why then spent over a decade denying it?“

Rey swallows thickly. “Because I love them, too.“

The creature smiles. “How does one eliminate the other?“

Rey opens her mouth but no words come out.

She looks up at a thousand versions of herself living different lives: some end sooner than others, some are longer and more dreadful. Filled with guilt and happiness, with hatred and love, clinging to the past and letting go of it. Controlling the storm and letting it control her.

“If you have to choose, child? What will it be?“

 _Child, girl, child, I have outgrown such words,_ Rey thinks. She wants, she craves more and everything and nothing. She has lost, left behind and embraced what has come after.

She stares the creature down. “I am no child anymore.“

“A woman then. But one of darkness or light? You seem unable to decide. Tired of giving but willing to lay it all down, made of hatred but so desperate to love. You have no place on either side of this. You’re lost, child.“

_“They seemed lost.“ Rose’s voice is gentle as she looks out the window._

_“It’s good to know,“ Rey tells her, “that they have a home now.“_

“But still I have a home,“ she tells the creature now.

It smiles. The darkness around them laces through with rays of sunlight.

“Do you?“

“I do.“

“Or have you just claimed other people’s homes for your own, scavenger?“

There is an old AT-AT half buried in the desert, there is a stone hut on an island, there is a shared room and a reading nook in the jungle.

“I carve them out of nothingness. I land back on my feet. I keep on. Fighting. Surviving. Feeling. I carry on.“

The ceiling of the darkness cracks, bright warm light illuminates the creature as it crooks its head, still eerily smiling.

“And I hate. And I love. And it isn’t easy.“

Rey smiles, remembering Rose’s words, “But when has anything good ever been easy? It does not make me foolish, or weak. It just makes me human.“

“And alone.“

Rey looks up at the creature now bathed in light and whispers, “I am not alone.“

* * *

**Deep Core  
** **Tython System  
** **Bogan**

She blinks at the flashing controls in front of her, frozen in time. The ship hangs in midair, meters away from making impact with a dark barren surface, wrecked by what seemed like a storm.

It is calm now.

Rey is calm now.

” _Go now. Warrior made of shadow and light. There is one last journey you need to take.“_

“Wait!“ she demands, “Who are you?“

The creature smiles in the back of her mind chuckling, _“No-one from nowhere, searching for a family lost. Some might call me the Mother, some might call me a cosmic force.“_

Rey stares at the ragged surface in front of her, clear and with a hint of blue sky behind an approaching sunrise.

It takes her a moment to register it.

The emptiness is gone.

_Just gone._

Like it was never there to begin with.

Like there had never been any part of her missing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello there you made it to the section called notes alternatively know as the author has a nerd out and bombards you with wookiepedia links:
> 
> \- [Corulag](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Corulag)  
> \- yes I strongly believe Rose adopted some [Fathiers](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Fathier) (and some [Porgs](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Porg) obviously)  
> \- [Tython](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Tython) and its moon [Bogan](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Bogan)  
> \- _"Come back"_ and _"I'm here, I am right here"_ are lines taken from the TFA novelization
> 
> I also have a half alive [tumblr](https://thegeekypoet.tumblr.com) where I don't really post anything but am happy to have a chat if you want to :)


	3. part 3/epilogue: dissipating stage

* * *

She lets out a surprised laugh.

His voice is panicked in the back of her mind, her name a constant stream of _Rey, Rey, Rey._

The connection flickers as if they are both struggling to reach the other, hands grasping desperately at strands reaching into the unknown until the sounds of the ship around her fall away.

She is out of her seat in an instant. He is in her arms in another, arms awkwardly half raised.

He exhales a shaky breath. ”You’re here.“

She nods against his chest beneath her cheek as his arms slowly close around her. He feels solid, warm, _alive_. His heartbeat loud enough to listen. She knows, she hears it hammering not across life and death, only time and space… and is this what relief feels like?

What happiness feels like?

An impatient flutter of thoughts of _where are you?_ and _you’re alive_ and _I missed you_ and h _ow could you?_

She keeps them to herself but pulls back to look up at him, his eyes dark and ancient as ever, ”Where is _here_ , exactly?“

Panic returns to his eyes and she wants to cup his face and pull him close and tell him that everything will be alright now, that after so much pain, so much destruction, neither a war nor death could separate them. But instead she watches as his eyes roam the space behind her, the scene vivid in her mind: the controls of a ship, a navigation computer frantically blinking as it searches for a set of coordinates to attach itself to and the darkness of space looming beyond the viewport, silent and empty.

His voice is hoarse when he replies, ”I don’t know.“ He clears his throat. ”I didn’t think that if I made it back, you would …“

Back then he had been all resolve, a rotten life exchanged for a bright one. The galaxy needed her more than him after all. The choice was easy to make. He had nothing to demand. His decisions had made sure of that.

There are reasons for his uncertainty now. Who was he? Broken child whose constant companion had been disappointment. What was there to demand of life now that he had it back?

She reaches up, her fingers tracing a scar healed in the ruins of an older war. He closes his eyes as if ashamed of his thoughts that are transparent to her, as if to say _I have nothing to hide, see, there is no reason for fear now._

Her hands framing his face, she thinks of the moment she woke in a burned-out throne room, when she healed him soaked to the bone, when he died as she clasped his hand. She thinks of the sorrow she tried to bury in the desert.

 _I am a broken thing too,_ she whispers in the emptiness of lightyears between them. _And then she lets him feel what she feels, because words would fail her. Love would fail her, happiness would fail her. Every concept she knows would dim in comparison right now._

He stares back at her with the disbelief of someone whose heart had been broken too often, twisted beyond recognition, ready to lay it at her feet. His hands absently cup her face, carefully, softly, as if she would vanish any moment, fall into pieces right before his eyes.

The bond begins to fray.

She thinks of the place they met for the first time and how one could bypass the need for a point of departure in a navigation computer. How it would be unnecessary to know where one came from as long as the destination was clear.

”I’ll be waiting,“ she whispers.

And when he is gone, they both vow it will be the last time.

* * *

**Mid Rim, Western Reaches  
** **Trashtor Sector, Takodana System  
** **Takodana**

**Some days later**

The grass is swaying softly as it starts to rain.

_Tap._

_Tap._

_Tap._

Like a wound in the desert. Like the raindrops around a First Order compound in the Deep Core. Like her parents’ blood on a steel floor.

_Tap._

_Tap._

_Tap._

Remembering here is different, in the place where this story began with a scavenger on the run from fate and a creature in a mask searching for a map that he thought would lead him to his.

The day left scars and decisions to be made and maybe in another universe they would have made kinder ones. Ones easier and less painful to recall.

Maz is still repairing the castle. It did not stop her from waving Rey into it though, when she turned up on her half finished doorstep a few days ago.

She had smiled knowingly and offered Rey a place to stay. Rey had contacted Rose and Finn, showered, eaten, and then she waited. She watched ships take off and land, stone being stacked on stone, and walls rising into the sky again. She walked, miles and miles through forest and fields, along lake shores, and still time crawled forwards slowly, achingly slowly.

Rey runs her fingers through the grass and turns her face towards the sky, inhaling the smell of rain and soil and plant-life.

_Tap-tap._

_Tap-tap._

_Tap-tap._

Somewhere in the distance, thunder growls, like the stomach of the little girl she once was, also waiting.

_What if he does not come?_

She shakes her head as if it will make the thought go away. He is on his way. She knows that. There is no reason for doubt to turn this sour and desperate.

Another thunderclap drowns out the sounds of the ship entering the atmosphere over her, but she does not need a sound to register it.

It still feels like a weight has been lifted off her shoulders. She breaks into a run as the ship sets down somewhere out of her sight.

When she finally spots Ben among the trees she comes to an abrupt halt. Reminded of their first encounter. Their eyes meet, not across life and death, not across time and space, only a field of grass. And then she does not know who starts running first. It does not matter.

_Whatever came before this, whatever comes after, let me have this for now._

She almost knocks him off his feet when she crashes into him, dizzy with the realness of it all. Her whisper is almost breathless, ”You’re here.“

”I am.“ He does not sound as if he really believes it, as if he is waiting for it to fall apart. She feels his tears fall.

_Tap._

_Tap._

_Tap._

She tries to brush them away with the pads of her thumbs; they are warm, she thinks absently as she pushes herself up onto her tiptoes.

When her lips meet his, it tastes like rainwater and tears and she thinks that this kiss belongs to the past. To the parts they played in a war that was not theirs.

She pulls away to look into his eyes, still afraid, still hesitant.

”I’m sorry,“ he whispers.

”Don’t be,“ she replies.

His gaze maps her face, flicking from freckles to mouth to her eyes again. As if he is asking, as if he is still afraid that this is not real. She sends him a smile and a little nod as his hands come up to frame her face, brushing errant strands of hair out of the way.

When he kisses her, they meet halfway and it is bittersweet for now, but Rey takes what she can get. Carves a home out of nothingness, from teeth clinking together awkwardly, from fingers buried in silky dark hair and names whispered among the rising tide of the wind rustling the branches and leaves.

 _It will be alright_ , she tells herself. And maybe it is a lie she tells herself now to make the future that looms more bearable, that makes it easy to not think about explanations and consequences of the past.

 _For now,_ she thinks as she pulls back to catch her breath, _let this be a place beyond right and wrong._ She cannot help the grin spreading across her face. _For now let this be home._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And you made it to the end! Thank you for reading <3
> 
> Just one link for this part:  
> \- [Takodana](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Takodana)
> 
> I have a half alive [tumblr](https://thegeekypoet.tumblr.com) where I don't really post anything but am happy to have a chat if you want to :)


End file.
